(no subject)

[skygiants]

I think I may have done Pyramids a disservice by reading it mostly on the plane home from Austin while exhausted. I like the first bit, the British Boy's School send-up via assassination training, quite a bit! But once young Teppic heads home to Parody Egypt, I just kept thinking "this feels like a dry run for Small Gods," and Small Gods - at least in my memory - is so good that I could not help but find it wanting.

I don't know, maybe it's just that all the bits of Pyramids don't quite come together. Dios-the-priest (not to be confused with any other Dioses, although I still maintain it would be hilarious if Akio showed up on the Discworld, if only to flirt with Nanny Ogg) is suitably and successfully creepy, and as I said the Assassins' Training School is a lot of fun, and Teppic himself is fine, and I love the helpful family mummies at the end, but somehow it all feels much more like bits and less like a put-together plot. Maybe it's just that I also feel like I know as much or more about ancient Egypt than the book does, so the parody-commentary is all a bit superficial. And there's interesting stuff about gods and religion in there, but it's all still sort of being formed, and hasn't yet come together.

Ptraci also does not much come together, since her main attributes until the very end are being sexy and scantily-clad and a poor singer, which is a shame after books full of amazing and strong ladies. So I suspect I was also cranky about that, although I had forgotten the way it ended, and I did like that.

But I don't know, as I said, maybe I am doing the book a disservice! Pyramids fans out there, what do you think? Please feel free to defend it to me! (Pyramids anti-fans, I want to know what you think too!)

Comments

[surexit]

I ♥ Pyramids, but I know what you mean, it is a little bitty. And I actually find both Pyramids and Small Gods almost slightly too creepy for me, I'm not sure why. Small Gods has a torture scene which I think hit me quite hard.

[skygiants]

Small Gods really is super-creepy, but I think it also works for me better because it's not trying as hard to be funny in between the creepy - I mean, it still is funny, because it's Pratchett, but it hits the balance better, if you know what I mean.