Rating: 
Summary: Best Discworld Book & Stands On Its Own
Review: Disclosure: I'm a big Pratchett fan.
That being said... 'Small Gods' is a wonderful book whether you're a Discworld regular or someone who hasn't read any other part of the series.
Pratchett, as always, uses humor to make a bigger point - and in this book he really hits a home run. This book had me laughing out loud and thinking critically.
Great fun, great read and highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The Word According to Terry Pratchett
Review: "Small Gods" is another Discworld novel, and one of the best to date. Taking place far away from the more familiar setting of Ankh-Morpork, the story centers on the struggle for religious freedom, and the difference between truth and perception.
Through absolutely no fault of his own, Brutha, a novice in the church of Omnia, has the misfortune of meeting his God as a voice inside his own head. Whereas the church is one of persecution, power grabbing and torture, Brutha is a peace-loving individual, slow in thought and imagination. He is ill prepared for meeting a deity. Om, his God, isn't having a very good day either.
Practchett utilizes his unique sense of humor and the setting of Discworld, to satire modern culture and popular thought. In "Small Gods", the issues tackled are religion, fanaticism and the drive for power. Whereas all of the Discworld books are funny, "Small Gods" is both funny and extremely thought provoking, with perhaps the hint of a message.
The book isn't quite as silly as, for instance, "Reaper Man", but there is plenty of the traditional silliness throughout. No need to lose one's sense of humor when making a point. Pratchett manages with style. (The guide to Discworld at the back is pretty fun, as well.)
Rating:
Summary: Let there be lettuce! Let there be slices of melon!
Review: In Small Gods, the thirteenth novel of the Discworld, Terry Pratchett gets philosophical, religious, and existential on us, delivering a remarkably insightful look at man and his relationship (or lack thereof) with the gods. There are gods everywhere on the Discworld - you can't swing a simian librarian without hitting one - except, of course, only a few people can see them. Each small god lies in wait, desperately seeking to make someone believe in him; on the Discworld, gods need people more than people need gods, for belief is the food of the gods.
The story takes us far away from the environs of Ankh-Morpork to Omnia, a land on the Klatchian coast ruled by the priesthood of the Church of Om. It's an arid, harsh world where the Quisition works tirelessly to beat the sin out of individuals deemed to be suspicious (and almost no one is safe, for the priests regard the very existence of suspicion as proof of guilt). You would think that the Great God Om would bask in the glory and power of all that faith being demanded of the people, but ritual has replaced substance in Omnia; the people may worship Om, but they don't really believe in him anymore. For the past three years, the Great God Om has been stuck in the body of a one-eyed tortoise and has only now been able to find one man with the true flame of faith burning inside him. Unfortunately for Om, that one believer is Brutha, a novitiate in the Church whom, all would agree, is just a little bit slow on the uptake and is just about the last person Om would have chosen to become his new Prophet. Brutha does have a perfect memory, but all that memory crammed into his mind leaves little room left over for actual thought. In a way he fits right in, though, as the Church does all it can to discourage individual thought, because that kind of thing just leads to trouble.
Naturally, Brutha has a hard time accepting a tortoise as the Great God Om, and Om doesn't have the power to do anything but curl ineffectual oaths and curses at things that bother him. Om is actually a pretty surly little god, but spending three years as a tortoise, having to worry about falcons swooping down on you and then dropping you from a great height, tends to bring out the worst in gods. Brutha is increasingly disturbed to learn that Om never really gave his followers any instruction whatsoever; all of the holy books he knows by heart suddenly come into question, and that's hard on a true believer.
As the novel progresses, Brutha finds himself accompanying Deacon Vorbis, head of the Quisition, to the land of Ephebe where philosophers cover the landscape like locusts, argue violently among themselves, and generally live in barrels. One such philosopher is Didactylos, whose philosophy can basically be boiled down to the words "It's a funny old world." He now becomes the unifying part of an underground movement that insists, despite the tenets of the Church, that "the Turtle moves," that turtle being, of course, the Great A'Tuin. As so often happens, religious dispute breeds war, and the future of Omnia - not to mention the future of the Great God Om - lies in the palms of Brutha. There is only one thing you can be sure of in such a precarious situation: somewhere nearby, Cut-Me-On-Hand-Off Dhblah will be there selling all sorts of wossnames - onna stick.
Pratchett's razor-sharp wit cuts especially deep into religion, society, and the body politic in this novel. To some degree, organized religion is being satirized in these pages, but it's a healthy and honest sort of criticism; more than anything else, Small Gods is an ingeniously subtle philosophical examination of the meaning of life in an uncertain world. Pratchett offers one explanation as to how and why gods die, and there is more than enough weighty material in these pages to give us pause in between fits of laughter.
Rating:
Summary: Annuncio Vobis Gaudium Magnum Habemus Testudo Dei
Review: Rough translation: I announce to you with great joy, we have a turtle God. That should have been the announcement that greeted the arrival of the God of the City of Om upon his return to Om. Unfortunately he was greeted by stunned disbelief by his sole remaining true believer. Since the size and power of any God/god on Discworld is directly proportional to the level of belief in each God's by its adherents this god is but a turtle. Out of such co-dependent relationships are small gods and Terry Pratchett's Small Gods made.
Co-dependent seems an apt term in this context. In Small Gods, Pratchett looks at organized religion through the prism of the co-dependant relationship. This theme is set against a backdrop which, if filmed, would have been produced by David Lean and looked remarkably like Lawrence of Arabia. (The Omnian attack on Ephebia and Brutha's trek with Vorbis across the desert between their cities both left me with images of Lawrence's attack on Aqaba and his disastrous trek across the desert with his youthful assistants.) Specifically, Pratchett examines the co-dependency of man and his God(s). Each is entirely co-dependent on the other. The plot, including the hilarious deus ex machina climax, has been well summarized in the product description and in other reviews so I'll confine myself to a few random observations.
No matter how deeply philosophical the underlying theme, the potential reader should know that Pratchett is an excellent writer and capable of some of the funniest lines and paragraphs you are likely to encounter in fiction. Pratchett introduces the Ephebians' leading philosopher Dydactylos thusly: His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools -- the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans -- and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, "You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink." It is no small compliment to state that the passage reminded me of Month Python's Philosopher's Song.
Pratchett's sharp tongue and wonderful sense of humor does not detract from his ability to get a point across. For example, the villain of the piece, Vorbis is engaged in diplomatic negotiations with the leader of the Ephebians, known simply as "the Tyrant". "Slave is an Ephebian word. In Om we have no word for slave," said Vorbis. "So I understand," said the Tyrant. "I imagine that fish have no word for water." In context, this exchange is simply brilliant. Small Gods is full of these little pearls.
Pearls, actually, form the basis of my final thoughts on Small Gods. I think it clear that Pratchett does not look kindly upon the excesses and brutalities committed in the name of God(s). However, those who do maintain such a belief system should not construe that as an attack on faith itself. I think one can liken the philosophies expressed by Moses, Jesus, or Buddha for example as a grain of sand. The grain of sand can be perfectly beautiful but because it serves as something of a societal irritant when first expressed it becomes covered with layer upon layer of outer covering until it evolves into a pearl. Now that pearl can be beautiful but it can also completely obscure the pure beauty of that grain of sand. So too with the trappings and dogma of oragnized relgion. When doctrine and dogma take pride of place the beauty of the idea is lost and can turn horrid. Vorbis' role as leader of the Omnian inquisition is no accident. The comparison between Vorbis and Brutha is beautiful for its symetry. Vorbis is all form and structure but totally devoid of content, of soul. Brutha is close to being the opposite. As we look at the trappings of our own faith (those of us that choose to have one) it might not be a bad idea to examine whether or not the trappings of that doctrine obscure the initial meaning and purity of the ideas around which those trappings were created.
That any author, particularly one so consistenly funny, can evoke such a thought process, is, perhaps, a minor miracle.
Rating:
Summary: Philosophers Have Right of Way
Review: If there is truth to the old adage that humor is simply tragedy revisited, then Terry Pratchett's Small Gods may be the world's funniest books. Pratchett has revisited the whole bloody history of religion, philosophy, government, and science as they are put to use in the service of war, death, and destruction, and served them up as a feast of knowing smiles, wicked grins, meaningful chuckles, spontaneous laughter, and a couple of uncontrollable guffaws for desert. But be warned, if you don't find it palatable to mix a bit of thinking and contemplation with your laughter, you might want to pass on this one.
Pratchett may be a philosopher disguised as a fantasy novelist and humorist. He gives us characters that brilliantly capture the gamut of human endeavor, from the pure malice of Vorbis, the true believer inquisitor, to the equally pure humanity of Brutha, the peasant prophet of brotherly love. He shows a keen understanding of the entire muddle in between, where most of us dwell, as well. He dissects the nature of belief and the relationship that humans have to their gods and vice-a-versa. And he shows exactly why the best human instincts so rarely win out in the end and what could happen when they do. Along the way, he scatters a plethora of erudite and silly jokes like land mines. Dissertations could be written on this book, but that would miss the point.
Avoid this book if you are adverse to cleverness and hilarity. Otherwise, put your hands on a copy post haste and join the delighted initiates of Pratchett's marvelous and witty world.
Rating:
Summary: The best Discworld novel I've read.
Review: My cousin has read one book.
She was so pleased with it that she made her own philosophy about reading: She is so anxious she will be disappointed that she's decided she'll never read any other book. At all.
This book could make me feel the same about reading if I were as ignorant as she.
But then again If I were, I'd probably not enjoy this book in the first place.
Read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Small Gods
Review: In "Small Gods", Terry Pratchett tackles religion and philosophy. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Our character offerings this time are an evil inquisitor named Vorbis, a meek apprentice named Brutha, and their almighty God Om, here incarnated as a powerless tortoise. Religion is the subject of the first half of the book, as we get lots of jokes about the evils of oppressive theocracy of medieval mindsets. I don't mind humor on this topic; the problem lies more in Pratchett's lack of originality. The jokes are mostly old ones, with a distinctly dreary feel. Pratchett's humor works better in the conversations between Brutha and Om, where the 'logic' of religion clashes with the oddness of having a god who's a small tortoise to produce some bizarre results.Brutha: That's Blasphemy!
Om: I can't blaspheme, I'm a God. or Om: Somebody up there likes me. It's me, of course. Luckily, the boring religious passages flow by fast enough that they don't really weigh the book down, and things pick up once we move to the city of Ephebe, where robed philosophers clash over metaphysics and Om tries to earn a living via geometric skill. The ending is everything we've come to expect from a Pratchett ending. So while "Small Gods" may not be Discworld's high watermark, it's still well worth checking out.
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