Small Gods (Discworld) (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 1992; vuoden 2013 painos)

One of Pratchett's best. Great book. ( )

Terry Pratchett takes on organized religion. Good stuff. ( )

Two or three stars? Many readers like(d) this Discworld novel, and I had good hopes that I would like it too, considering I (very) much liked the previous eight novels I've read so far. But I can't say whether it was my mood or the writing itself or something else that made it hard for me to get into the story.

Already from the start I had difficulty imagining it all, linking persons and events. I'm a visual kind of person: when I read, I try to imagine how the characters look, what the environment is like, etcetera. With 'Small Gods', Pratchett's magic never kicked in, if I may say/write so.

There are two reviews I largely agree with: Tim's and Sam's. They go into detail about what they thought was good and not (so) good. Chris's detailed review is also very good, but we differ in liking: he liked the story very much, I didn't.

For me, one of the problems was: lack of humour like in the previous novels. Like I wrote, the magic never kicked in. Not even Death was likeable or as likeable as in [b:Mort|828352|Mort (Discworld, #4)|Terry Pratchett|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327866639s/828352.jpg|1857065], [b:Reaper Man|833424|Reaper Man (Discworld #11)|Terry Pratchett|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1473122828s/833424.jpg|1796454], [b:Hogfather|797189|Hogfather (Discworld, #20)|Terry Pratchett|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1306814220s/797189.jpg|583655], ... The turtle - sorry, tortoise - Om (a god, Brutha's God) was a nice character, but in the last pages he got a bit tedious. He also made me think: well, use an animal and it can be funny or more attractive. Would it have been a human character, a lot of the "magic" would be lost and the story would be dull, in my opinion.

Another problem, I found: the succession of events. At some point this happens, then all of a sudden something else happens and other characters are added. Wait? Did I read too fast? Was there a passage that explained the change? Where did these characters suddenly come from?

Around page 259 - maybe he was "preaching" against religion, maybe he intended it to be otherwise, I don't know - Pratchett's writing got more serious, as if one a crusade against religion or believing. Like Richard Dawkins has the habit of doing in his quest of "atheists are the best". There I saw a different Pratchett, not the one from previous novels, which I liked more. But again, maybe Pratchett intended the story or passage to be different from just preaching about the evils of religion or mankind fooling itself over and over again (as in: history repeats itself).

To cut things short: this was the first Discworld novel I didn't really like and had a hard time ploughing through. Ergo: not recommended. ( )

It's been a long time since I read any Pratchett. I read his first 2 Discworld novels and liked them a lot back about 25 years ago. I have a bunch of his other books and many of his books are available on audio, I just somehow never got back to him, even though my wife has a read a bunch of his books and brags about them. Even though I was once graced with a complement that some of my own writing reminded them of Pratchett. I ended up reading this because I'm working on finishing NPR's top 100 fantasy/sci list.

It may have been said before, but Pratchett writes serious comedies in a completely ridiculous world, filled with completely ridiculous characters and events. You're sitting there thinking, "this is completely ridiculous" and then there will be a line that lays bare the human condition and then at the end of the book, you realize he was trying to tell you something, trying to explain the world at least in a way that he understands it. Someone might have already written "this book", but theirs didn't have a flat world on top of the backs of elephants, on top of a giant turtle, or a god who's lost all his followers except one; and as a result their books probably weren't as much fun. ( )

It seems that there are people who like and enjoy Terry Pratchett, and then there's me. I think this is the 4th Pratchett novel I've attempted (Nation, Going Postal, and Making Money were the others), and he's just not my thing. ( )