begins what I call the âGods and Philosophersâ series. . . .
9
Pyramids (1989)
T HERE ARE THOSE WHO SAY that some Discworld books are one-shots, singletons, stand-alones, not part of any of the several sub-series. They will name Pyramids and Small Gods and The Truth as examples.
Naaah. The Truth as examples.
All of these alleged singletons fall into two categories, so far as I can seeâthey deal with either religion and philosophy (as in Pyramids and Small Gods ) or with the effects of some new technology or other significant sociological change on Ankh-Morpork (as in The Truth ). Iâve therefore labeled them as two series: âGods and Philosophers,â and âAnkh-Morpork: Beyond the Century of the Fruitbat.â
The former series is never set primarily in Ankh-Morpork, while the latter is almost entirely in Ankh-Morpork, and on those occasions when the city isnât the actual setting (as in Moving Pictures ), most of the characters are natives of Ankh-Morpork.
Thatâs reasonable enough; the people of Ankh-Morpork arenât especially interested in religion and philosophy, but theyâre very interested in new technologies that might make them some money.
Pyramids is unrelated to anything that went before, except that itâs set on the Discworldâweâve seen that happen before, with Equal Rites , when a new series was starting. Being one of the âGods and Philosophersâ series, itâ s mostly set well away from Ankh-Morporkâbut not entirely.
One oddity of Pyramids , relative to other Discworld novels, is that itâs divided into four âbooksâânot chapters as such, but âThe Book of
Going Forth,â âThe Book of the Dead,â âThe Book of the New Son,â 79 and âThe Book of 101 Things a Boy Can Do.â 80 These arenât independent stories making up a larger narrative, like the four sections of The Colour of Magic , but just very long chapters.
Our protagonist, Teppic (or Pteppic, or Teppicymon XXVIII), is the son of the god-king of the ancient river kingdom Djelibeybi. 81 When we first meet him, however, Teppic is a student in the Guild of Assassins in Ankh-Morpork, preparing for his final exam.
Gods and Philosophers: The Series
These stories are about the relationships of humans, their gods, and the universe at large, and donât fit into any of the other series:
Pyramids
Chapter 9
Small Gods
Chapter 15
The Last Hero
Chapter 33
It could be argued that The Thief of Time (Chapter 32) and âDeath and What Comes Nextâ (Chapter 37) should be included as well, but I classified them as part of the Death series instead. Maybe the two series are merging.
For a discussion of the series as a whole, see Chapter 55.
The scenes at the Assassinsâ Guild, which take up much of that first book, âThe Book of Going Forth,â donât really have all that terribly much to do with the main plot, but they do give Mr. Pratchett a chance to shamelessly parody Tom Brownâs School Days . Teppicâs chum Arthur is a character swiped directly from Tom Brown , save that where the original was a devout Christian, the Discworld version is a devotee of the
Great Orm, 82 a rather less kindly deity than the Christian one. It makes the bedtime prayer scene rather more entertaining than the one in Tom Brown .
This modern education is how Teppic manages to grow up with ideas and attitudes that are rather inappropriate for a pharaoh.
No, I donât mean a willingness to dispose of political obstacles with blades or poison; thatâs perfectly normal for monarchs in most circumstances, though I admit it doesnât seem the sort of thing one might expect of most current European royalty. I mean an unwillingness to throw himself wholeheartedly into a life of meaningless ritual.
Still, when his father dies, Teppic returns to Djelibeybi to take up the role of god-king, and rather carelessly agrees
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