Pyramids

Somehow a less successful Discworld book, perhaps the characters are not as engaging, although there are plenty of cringeworthy puns. ( )

Hilarious. One of the funniest Discworld books. I was reading most of it with my daughter and we were rolling with laughter at some of the scenes - especially the one when Teppic gets dressed for his first ceremonial occasion. "Now this, sire, is the Scapula of Hygiene. Where would you like it put?"

The story features an assassin turned pharaoh, a genius mathematician ill-tempered camel named You Bastard, numerous pharaohs living and in various stages of deadness; Ptaclusp and Ptraci, and of course, pyramids. Moral of the story: size matters, but in this case it is the dimension of time that's important.

This is probably one of Sir Pterry's funniest books, and one of the most disjointed. Threads aren't quite resolved, the story often doesn't make sense, but the hilarity makes up for all.
( )

I read this book for one of the LT reading challenges after buying it a few years back. It started as a lunchtime reading book but quickly fell into the "read it all at once" category. And I'm glad it did; the flow went much more smoothly and the humor became much more fun in its subtlety.

It's light, humorous, and contains a hapless young man who goes away for schooling (like, serious schooling) as an assassin. He learns about things like plumbing which are unknown in his long, narrow kingdom of Djelibeybi (say it out loud and you'll get the pun). When his father dies and he inherits the throne, all his schooling needs to get chucked out the window in favor of his new duties, or does it?

Fortunately for Teppic, he is just hapless enough that the serious priest who has taken care of the family rituals for far too long don't take him seriously enough. And his father finds that he really, really doesn't want to be buried under tons of rock. After all, when one's kingdom is a long, narrow spit of land with limited farmland, the locations for a new pyramid are limited. Conflicts ensue, new characters are introduced, camels are found witty, and war is averted. And time changes, and it is a fun, easy romp in the world of Discs. ( )

While I was disappointed in my reread of [b: Wyrd Sisters|233664|Wyrd Sisters The Play|Terry Pratchett|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388363090s/233664.jpg|17589683] [b: Pyramids|64217|Pyramids (Discworld, #7)|Terry Pratchett|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1439098306s/64217.jpg|968512] pleasantly surprised me. I remembered not entirely enjoying the book the first time I read it, but this time it had me laughing out loud on several occasions. It had been long enough that I'd forgotten the bulk of the plot and characters, so everything came as a fresh and pleasant surprise. I think reading about Egypt over the years helped my enjoyment of this book a fair bit - as did reading [b: American Gods|30165203|American Gods (American Gods, #1)|Neil Gaiman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1492065360s/30165203.jpg|1970226]. We all get our ideas somewhere.

Teppic is due to be the latest King of a small, somewhat pointless Kingdom, long in debt to everyone due to their obsessive building of pyramids. He's drawn back home after passing his Assassin's Guild exam due to the death of his father, and after being convinced by the high priest that his father deserves the largest pyramid of all time, things begin to go wonky. Just why are they building pyramids? Are the gods real? Isn't there something funny about camels?

This book succeeded where [b: Wyrd Sisters|233664|Wyrd Sisters The Play|Terry Pratchett|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388363090s/233664.jpg|17589683] failed for me by dint of having a more original plot. The humor didn't all latch upon literary references or tropes, but rather more upon history itself and the ridiculousness of certain customs. The humor veered slightly away from the strictly puerile, the characters felt original, and anyone who's ever been around a camel would understand how right about them Sir Terry truly was.

Very fun read. ( )

Not my very favorite Pratchett, but still so. Much. Fun. ( )