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The blurb:
Time is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed.
And on Discworld that is the job of the Monks of History, who store it and pump it from the places where it's wasted (like underwater -- how much time does a codfish need?) to places like cities, where there's never enough time.
But the construction of the world's first truly accurate clock starts a race against, well, time, for Lu Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd. Because it will stop time. And that will only be the start of everyone's problems.
Thief of Time comes complete with a full supporting cast of heroes and villains, yetis, martial artists and Ronnie, the fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse (who left before they became famous).
I did enjoy this one — though it's another one I call a Death novel only by courtesy, as Death isn't a major character. That role is filled by Death's granddaughter, Susan. In Thief of Time, she's tasked with protecting Time — another anthropomorphic representation who, like Death, is on stage only in periphery.
This is not the first History Monks book (that's Small Gods, that I'll get back to later on — which feels appropriate, given the order's ability to shift time around to there's enough of it where it's needed); however, it's fine to read out of order.
I don't read any great moral discussions in Thief of Time, at least nothing on the scale of, say, Feet of Clay's consideration of who gets to be 'human' and free will. But there's some nice poking of fun at kung fu movie tropes and the like, and I really enjoyed both Lu Tze and Lobsang Ludd as characters. Lu Tze especially provides a lot of the book's humour. I think this is also the conclusion of Susan's arc, ending up with Lobsang Ludd in a rather unsensible romantic moment, which is a nice change for her.
The overall plot: the Auditors are back again, with another scheme to rid the universe of all that pesky unpredictable life. This time, they hire Jeremy Clockson to build the perfect clock, one in time with the universal tick. The only problem is, though Jeremy doesn't know it, such a perfect clock will trap time rather than just keeping it, meaning the end of anything happening ever again. Death, the Auditors' usual opponent, can't get involved because of Jeremy's nature, which is something akin to Susan's. So Susan is deputised once again.
The plot is at once pretty straightforward — stop the clock, save the world — and complicated, with quite a few moving parts. Just like a clock, really. But it moves quickly and it's pretty easy to keep up with it; you very quickly get the idea that Lobsand and Jeremy are not your usual run-of-the-mill humans, for example, and Lu Tze does keep things moving.
Started: 13 March 2025
Finished: 20 March 2025
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