Thief of Time

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Summary: Terry does it again! And Susan's Back!
Review: If your a new Terry Pratchett reader, be warned, these are no ordinary fantasy books. They will take on a wild ride through a flat world that sits on the back of four elephants who themselves stand on the back of a giant turtle. And that's just the beginning! In this book, Terry has his beloved characters take on the nature of Time. DEATH's grandaughter, Susan is back, dragged kicking and screaming into the adventure. This is the kind of book that you savor every line (and every last chocolate!). The author's comic, but astute observations of human nature make this much more than a simple fantasy novel. If you've started with Thief of Time and loved it, then go back and read these others, you won't be disappointed!

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Summary: great as usual, but I got a feeling of deja vu
Review: I rated this book five stars, and to be frank I'd be surprised if anyone gave it less. It's not the best Discworld book that ever was (nothing can beat Witches Abroad), but it's still a lot better than 99.9 per cent of all the other books on the market. Like in previous novels The Truth and Hogfather, the Discworld is more and more drawn away from a pure fantasy world into the realm of our daily life, but there is still enough fantasy left to satisfy readers.
One compaint, however, has to be made. Parts of the story, and I mean large parts as opposed to random sentences, gave me a feeling of Déjá Vu, and I know exactly where that comes from. The first source is Hogfather, the previous Death And Susan book. As soon as Susan, The Son of Time, and Unity meet, you feel that their conversations and actions might as well be those of Susan, The Oh-God of Hangovers, and Violet in Hogfather. A little more variety of character would have been nice.
The other source, it seems to me, is German writer Michael Ende's wonderful novel Momo. Momo is a fantasy story, or rather a fairy tale, about a girl having to fight an invasion of grey entities who look human, but are not. Does that sound familiar? In Ende's book, the invaders are called The Grey Gentlemen, or Time-Thieves, since stealing time is what they do. Hmmm ... Thieve of Time, auditors who want to stop humanity wasting the universe's time ... Not that I'm suggesting anything. Oh, and in Ende's book, time finally comes to a standstill, complete with people stopping dead at whatever they were doing. The only persons still able to move are Momo, who carries a device giving her extra time, and Kassiopeia, who has her own time inside of her. Again, does that sound slightly familiar?
Normally, I don't like books much if you can see the sources so clearly, but Thieve of Time is incredibly well-written, and I can recommend it to anyone. I particularly liked the portrayal of the auditors - I never thought there could be anything funny about those, but there is. It's a shame about Unity, though.

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Summary: FANTASTIC UNABRIDGED AUDIO BOOK
Review: I just finished listening to THIEF of TIME! I never wanted it to end! Bravo to this Fantastic Audio Literature for delivering such a delicious, unabridged version of Prachett's hysterical novel. The fact that the infamous and delightful (grin) HARLAN ELLISON delivers a great portion in the book is a kick! To get a long novel like this, UNABRIDGED, and yet PERFORMED with twinkle-in-your-eye-wit by such fabulous readers gives the whole book an experience of great variety! I listen to tons of audio books, and I am not expecially a fantasy/sci-fi fan .. but this company might just win me over! Keep them coming, guys! The book is hysterical; reminding me of Monty Python gone sci-fi! SOOPER STUFF!!!

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Summary: The return of Susan!
Review: Let me start off my admitting I have read nearly all of the disc world books available on audiobook. I was very excited to see this one offered at such a reasonable price, compared to previous books from Isis Audio that are double the price of this one. The reader changes every few pages of text, which I found rather annoying at first, but I got used to it. If you liked the character of Susan Sto Helit, death's grand daughter, she figures as one of the leads in this book. The other leads are all new. It had Pratchett's usual blend of hilarity and plot. Though this plot was more complicated than usual, so I may have to listen to it a few times to REALLY figure out what was going on. That's OK though, because disc world books are more about process than outcome, and the more I listen, the more I get my money's worth, right? :)

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Summary: Twelve Hours with the Thief of Time
Review: Experimentation can be an amazing and fruitful endeavor. Where would we be if our ancestors hadn’t experimented with fire, horticulture, or metallurgy? What would life be like if Claudius Galen hadn’t experimented with physiology, if Galileo hadn’t experimented with falling bodies (no, I’m not referring to corpses), if Pierre and Marie Curie hadn’t isolated radium and polonium from uranium ore? What kind of world would we live in without the experimentation of Edison, Tesla, or the Wright brothers? Experimentation is nearly always a good thing. That is, with the possible exception of the audio book presentation of Terry Pratchett’s, Thief of Time by Fantastic Audio. I was drawn to this adaptation in Pratchett’s Discworld series due to the presence of Harlan Ellison, whose work as a voice actor is as exceptional as is his work on the written page. Ellison doesn’t just read the words he lives the part, and that is the beginning of the problems with this audio book because Ellison isn’t given a role, but only paragraphs, sentences, and fragments of sentences. Listed as “a guest appearance by Harlan Ellison”, his role comes off more like someone hired to patch holes left by others. In the twelve hours, Ellison’s appearances come across as startling and discordant due to their dropped-in nature. I don’t blame Ellison, but I do hold the producer, Stefan Rudnicki, responsible for wasting not only the talents of Ellison, but also those of the other actors in this audio book adaptation: Christopher Cazenove, Gabrielle De Cuir, Karesa McElheny, and John Rubinstein. Their talents are diluted by Rudnicki’s experimentation with identification of characters. Each of the actors is given certain characters to portray through most of the eight tapes, but near the end chaos reigns supreme as actors switch roles and voice characterizations! If you’re like me and listen to an audiotape to make your commute to and from work bearable, this type of experimentation is frustrating, jarring, and drains the pleasure I derive from the authors work. Fortunately, the quality of Pratchett’s wit and his mastery of satire and parody shine through and I will sample his written works. It remains to be seen if I will experiment with other audio book adaptations by Fantastic Audio (an imprint of American Audio Literature, Inc.) in the future, but it’s unlikely...

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Summary: Yet another great installment
Review: I was actually a bit nervous going into this book -- was Discworld getting stale? Would Pratchett be able to break out of what I've viewed as a recent slump? The answers, to my relief and delight, are no and yes, in that order. It helps that this is book features Death, who continues to be one of my favorite Discworld characters, but it also helps that it's just very good. Sure, there are some themes that are obvious echoes of previous Discworld books, and the basic plot in outline is not radically dissimilar from, say, Hogfather; but apparently I'm not as fixated on freshness and novelty as I imagined I was. I'll settle for quality.

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Summary: Classic Pratchett
Review: Contrary to the usual progression of serials and the opinions of many Discworld fans, I think Pratchett just keeps getting better and better. "Thief of Time" is no exception. I'm tempted to just say "It has Susan in it, so you know it's good" and leave it at that, but there's so much more to this one. Death's unnervingly real and practical granddaughter, now a schoolteacher, is joined by a monastery that collects time, a young monk with an intriguing family history, a frighteningly obsessive clockmaker, and an Auditor unlike any you've ever seen. Footnotes are common and hilarious, the plot is engaging, and of course it all makes sense, eventually. I could go on, but I think saying any more would give too much away.

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Summary: Rule 19: Never forget Rule 1
Review: Rule 1: Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man.<.

Jeremy, a young clockmaker who has always managed to stay just this side of insanity (except for once) finds that he has been enlisted to build a clock that measures time perfectly. He and his assistant Igor attack the problem with zest, never realizing that this perfect clock will stop time forever. It is a plot by the Auditors to rid themselves of human beings.

In a monastery far, far away, where the Monks of History live, young Lobsang, finds he has been apprenticed to the fearsome Lu-Tse, chief janitor, and master of the Way of Mrs. Cosmopilite. Lobsang is assign to Lu-Tse because he seems to be able to steal at the speed of light and always knows the answers to the wrong question. This remarkable pair soon discover that time is being meddled with. They set off to Ankh-Morpork (where everything happens) to put a stop to the putting a stop to time.

Finally, young Miss Susan, instructor at the Frout Academy, and direct descendant of DEATH himself, receives an assignment from her grandfather. You guessed, if time stops, DEATH is out of business. Riding Binky the pale horse, accompanied by Quoth the raven and the Death of Rats (SQUEAK), she too heads for Ankh-Morpork to avert THE END.

Suffice it to say, there is no way to adequately describe the plot of a novel that combines Taoism, a genuine apocalypse, and the fine art of chocolate making between two covers. Pratchett skates from profundity to sarcasm with the kind of facility that comes from writing 26 Discworld novels. Satirizing both the universe's self appointed counters of beans and monastic cults without being offensive to either is another sign of Pratchett's mastery. His plotting is tighter than ever, and he has succeeded in taking some of his oldest shticks and making them seem fresh and new. Even Nanny Ogg makes an appearance.

I am tempted to call this his best yet. I only hesitate because he has written so many that I can no longer remember all of them. But I will never forget the twisted wisdom of Mrs. Cosmopilite, or the strange uses Lu-Tse puts it to. It is simple impossible to go wrong with "Thief of Time." As with most of Pratchett's Discworld series it stands on it's own quite well. If you are a fan of dry wit and a bit of slapstick you will be unable to put it down.

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Summary: Don't get to the Apocalypse without reading this book
Review: This is why Terry Pratchett is the best. In The Thief of Time he gets deeper into the story and its characters with every turn of a phrase, riding rough-shod through the English language.

While revisiting Death and his granddaughter, Miss Susan, Pratchett takes us on a tour-de-farce tour of the Discworld past and present while introducing an entire new cast of characters that numbers in the billions (let's see MGM beat that!). These include the other four (yes, that's five total) Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the history monks who manage time, and the bean counters of the universe - and where would we be without them? Hmmm?

The story starts out as a sort of suspense-thriller in a literal race against Time. Miss Susan and the monks, working separately, must stop Time from coming to a stop. Meanwhile, seeing how it's the Apocalypse and all, Death must round up his old pals and ride out. Except that Time has taken its toll on his buddies.

Will Time come to a full stop? Or will our intrepid heroes arrive in the nick of Time to save the day? If they don't, history will shatter into so many pieces that even the Igor can't put them together again. So don't miss the exciting conclusion and don't forget to tune in next Time, if there is a next Time.

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Summary: First Pratcher book we've read
Review: My son, 15, and I thoroughly enjoyed Thief of Time after seeing it on the "new books" shelf at the library. I came online to buy it for him (because we reread favorite books over and over) and I'm thrilled to find there are many more books in the same series! Definately 5 stars for him, and 4.5 stars for me.