Pyramids: A Discworld Novel: 7

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All Stories Are Real Somewhere: The narrator notes that this must be the case in an infinite universe. Like the real Egypt, Djelibeybi has several different gods for the same thing (in the real world, this was due to Egyptian culture existing and evolving for millennia and assimilating Greek, Hittite etc gods alongside their original ones). This means that, among other things, they all fight for who gets the job of moving the sun around, with a nearby priest acting as a sports commentator to describe it. This is a pun on the German word ‘doppelgänger,’ (meaning literally ‘double goer’) which has entered the English language and is used to describe an apparition or alternate being that is one's double. In English it usually has sinister overtones.

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Pyramids uses a fairly straight forward structure. It's linear and focuses, mainly, on Teppic our main character. The paragraphs are nice and short in the main. It also includes the nice little footnotes that Pratchett uses in most of his works. All in all, a very easy book to read. Royals Who Actually Do Something: Teppic is a fully trained assassin. After his attempts to change things through his royal authority fail, he takes a more direct and personal approach. He does not assassinate anyone, but his training for sneaking, incapacitating guards and breaking into places is put to use. It´s never bad for craftsmen to organize in guilds or unions and if the specialization is something not as mainstream as wood and metalwork, but, let´s say, different forms of working with living material, it gives the whole idea potential for satirizing the strange bureaucracy of the political apparatus. If robbers, assassins, smugglers, prostitutes,… all have their accepted, democratic councils and can influence legislation and jurisdiction, the manifold interests and manipulations that are forming the processes in real life can be shown in a new light. Shaped Like Itself: Aforementioned storyteller also says of a great hero that "his armor shone like shining armor."

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Implausible Deniability: Dios insists Teppic cannot be Teppic when he catches him breaking Dios' rules. Since Dios is the one proclaiming this, no-one dares argue the fact. Later on, Teppic's father is a little dubious at the story of Teppic killing himself then fleeing on a camel. First published in 1989 and by this time Pratchett’s fame and fortune with the Discworld was established and he mixed things up a bit. The first of the “stand alone” Discworld books, this does not feature many of the standard Discworld characters or themes but Pratchett’s writing is as expected and this is just as funny and as acerbically satirical as any of his other excellent adventures. Snake Oil Salesman: Khuft, the founder of Djelibeybi ( sort of), turns out to have been a camel salesman who was forced to flee into the desert to avoid angry customers.

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Conservatives vs progressives was, even in this version of ancient Egypt, a hot topic, and Pratchett ridicules the arguments of antiquated minds by exaggerating their prime goals and authorities in general. So I'm guessing that Thrrp, The Charioteer of the Sun has also been through since I finished the book, but never mind, I'm sure I shall be forgiven if I build a pyramid in my garden.Rambling Old Man Monologue: While in Tsort, Pteppic attends a symposium with the so-called greatest storyteller on the Disc. Sadly, he's clearly past his prime, and the story comes out like this, with the guy scarcely able to remember any of the details. Although in the aspect of him being the high priest, he very much follows expectations in that he is not explicitly insane or power-hungry, but so pious that adherence to belief and tradition override all else. Faux Horrific: Parodying the tendencies of the British Royal Family, Ptaclusp reacts with horror to Teppic's attempts to Put Him at his Ease and Remember his Name, and Dil has to endure half an hour of having to Talk about his Family. Teppic winced. “To be honest, I’m not sure,” he said. “But I don’t think so. They’ve got something they do it with, I think it’s called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man, one—” He paused. The political history lesson seemed a very long while ago, and had introduced concepts never heard of in Djelibeybi or in Ankh-Morpork, for that matter. He had a stab at it anyway. “One man, one vet.” Book I is The Book of Going Forth, which is a reference to the loose collection of Egyptian texts and spells for aiding passage into the afterlife, generally known as the Book of the Dead and originally know as the ‘ Book of Coming Forth by Day or Book of Emerging Forth into the Light'. (see the annotation for p. 9 of The Light Fantastic).