to entomb his paternal predecessor in the largest pyramid ever built.
The thing is, the Discworld has a very intense magical field, as has been noted many times by now, and that means that pyramids on the Disc really do focus cosmic energy, just as some New Age believers claim they do here. Sharpening razor blades is nothing; they do far more than that.
Most of Djelibeybiâs pyramids harmlessly flare off their excess energy every night, rather like oil refineries flaring off natural gas thatâs not worth the trouble of recovering, but the big new one Teppic has inadvertently commissionedâwell, things donât go quite as planned in that regard.
Djelibeybi, as should have been bloody obvious by now, is a parody of ancient Egypt, complete with sacred crocodiles, animal-headed gods, pyramids, mummification, cat worship, god-kings, and the like. The neighboring land of Ephebe, which Teppic will visit, is a parody of Golden Age Greece, well-stocked with philosophers and replete with references to the Discworld version of the Trojan Warâor rather, not so much a parody of the actual ancient Athens as of the popular misconceptions thereof.
Yes, itâs definitely parody, and arguably a parody of fantasy, but itâs not the sort of âfantasyâ one finds shelved with the science fiction at your local bookstore; instead itâs the fantasy versions of actual history thatâs being mocked, what one might call the Hollywood versions of Egypt and Greeceâor perhaps the schoolboy version.
And the story winds its way through commentary on tradition, religion,
politics, philosophy, business, family, and camels, among other things, before finally reaching a satisfactory conclusion.
Thereâs a great deal of entertaining nonsense about time and energy, which are grotesquely distorted by the pyramids; once again, I have a suspicion that Mr. Pratchettâs work in the power industry contributed something to the descriptions.
All in all, though, this really doesnât do much to change the series as a whole. We donât see the major characters again hereafter, nor do any of the regular Discworld cast appear (except Death, of course). While Ephebe will turn up again, Djelibeybi will never again get more than a brief mention. Pyramids is a lovely novel, but it doesnât really connect much of anywhere.
Teppic does not return in any later storiesâor at any rate, he hasnât reappeared yetâbut we see more of gods and philosophers six books later, in Small Gods âsee Chapter 15. The next to be written, though, launched yet another series, one thatâs probably the most successful of the bunch. . . .
10
Guards! Guards! (1989)
M ANY PEOPLE (which in this case means, as it so often does, âpeople I agree with, even if itâs really just me and everyone else thinks Iâm a loonâ) consider the stories of
Ankh-Morporkâs City Watch to be the best, on average, of the various Discworld series, and Guards! Guards! starts the series off well. Our tale opens (after a brief introductory note about dragons) 83 with Captain Samuel Vimes lying drunk in a gutter, a practice heâs clearly well-accustomed to.
Vimes, we learn, is the commanding officer of the Night Watch, which consists of himself, Sergeant Colon, and Corporal Nobby Nobbs, and until very recently included someone named Gaskin, whose death is the excuse for Vimesâs latest round of inebriation. These fineâno, skip the adjectiveâthese men are responsible for keeping the peace in Ankh-Morpork.
The book is dedicated to all those faceless guards and watchmen in countless fantasy novels whose basic function is to die pointlessly; this is apparently exactly the sort of watchmen the people of Ankh-Morpork want. This is not what Vimes and company want to be , however.
Iâll have more to say about that when I discuss the series as a whole in Chapter 56.
At any rate, a new Watchman by
The thing is, the Discworld has a very intense magical field, as has been noted many times by now, and that means that pyramids on the Disc really do focus cosmic energy, just as some New Age believers claim they do here. Sharpening razor blades is nothing; they do far more than that.
Most of Djelibeybiâs pyramids harmlessly flare off their excess energy every night, rather like oil refineries flaring off natural gas thatâs not worth the trouble of recovering, but the big new one Teppic has inadvertently commissionedâwell, things donât go quite as planned in that regard.
Djelibeybi, as should have been bloody obvious by now, is a parody of ancient Egypt, complete with sacred crocodiles, animal-headed gods, pyramids, mummification, cat worship, god-kings, and the like. The neighboring land of Ephebe, which Teppic will visit, is a parody of Golden Age Greece, well-stocked with philosophers and replete with references to the Discworld version of the Trojan Warâor rather, not so much a parody of the actual ancient Athens as of the popular misconceptions thereof.
Yes, itâs definitely parody, and arguably a parody of fantasy, but itâs not the sort of âfantasyâ one finds shelved with the science fiction at your local bookstore; instead itâs the fantasy versions of actual history thatâs being mocked, what one might call the Hollywood versions of Egypt and Greeceâor perhaps the schoolboy version.
And the story winds its way through commentary on tradition, religion,
politics, philosophy, business, family, and camels, among other things, before finally reaching a satisfactory conclusion.
Thereâs a great deal of entertaining nonsense about time and energy, which are grotesquely distorted by the pyramids; once again, I have a suspicion that Mr. Pratchettâs work in the power industry contributed something to the descriptions.
All in all, though, this really doesnât do much to change the series as a whole. We donât see the major characters again hereafter, nor do any of the regular Discworld cast appear (except Death, of course). While Ephebe will turn up again, Djelibeybi will never again get more than a brief mention. Pyramids is a lovely novel, but it doesnât really connect much of anywhere.
Teppic does not return in any later storiesâor at any rate, he hasnât reappeared yetâbut we see more of gods and philosophers six books later, in Small Gods âsee Chapter 15. The next to be written, though, launched yet another series, one thatâs probably the most successful of the bunch. . . .
10
Guards! Guards! (1989)
M ANY PEOPLE (which in this case means, as it so often does, âpeople I agree with, even if itâs really just me and everyone else thinks Iâm a loonâ) consider the stories of
Ankh-Morporkâs City Watch to be the best, on average, of the various Discworld series, and Guards! Guards! starts the series off well. Our tale opens (after a brief introductory note about dragons) 83 with Captain Samuel Vimes lying drunk in a gutter, a practice heâs clearly well-accustomed to.
Vimes, we learn, is the commanding officer of the Night Watch, which consists of himself, Sergeant Colon, and Corporal Nobby Nobbs, and until very recently included someone named Gaskin, whose death is the excuse for Vimesâs latest round of inebriation. These fineâno, skip the adjectiveâthese men are responsible for keeping the peace in Ankh-Morpork.
The book is dedicated to all those faceless guards and watchmen in countless fantasy novels whose basic function is to die pointlessly; this is apparently exactly the sort of watchmen the people of Ankh-Morpork want. This is not what Vimes and company want to be , however.
Iâll have more to say about that when I discuss the series as a whole in Chapter 56.
At any rate, a new Watchman by
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