Small Gods - Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett has written a lot of good books. When my teenage self ran out of Doctor Who novelisations, it was Pratchett's Discworld series that maintained my terrifying reading rate until I was old enough to appreciate all the pop culture and drugs references in the Doctor Who New Adventures. But of all the Discworld novels, 'Small Gods' is the one to which I keep returning. It's not exactly my favourite, as I always loved the slightly earlier Reaper Man even more because I was a very pretentious teenager. But this novel is without doubt the most solidly intellectual of the entire canon. The book takes its premise pretty directly ...  Read the complete review

"What gods need is belief, and what humans want is gods." This is why the Church of the Great God Om is all-powerful and why Om is somewhere up a brown river. Humans want gods but they don't necessarily believe in them - it's the difference between wanting a church wedding and actually going to church. Om started out as one of the billions of small gods, hanging on to existence while trying to attract believers. One day a shepherd came along and Om helped him locate a lost sheep. Et voila, Omnianism. There's an old story that says if you whip a horse, it'll run faster but eventually, when you stop whipping it, it'll lose ...  Read the complete review

This was my first experience reading a Terry Pratchett novel, as well as my first introduction to the 'Discworld'... and I was impressed! Small Gods has a bit of everything - it's full of imagination, philosophy, satire, and gets down right funny at times! The story centers around Brutha, a religious novice in Omnia, who is also a worshipper of the Great God Om (who is a .................turtle). The only thing is, he is the last true believer and the only person who can truly speak to Om (which is the reason for Om only being a turtle in the first place). Basically, this is Brutha's story of self and religious discovery. None of ...  Read the complete review

According to Pratchett, when he wrote Small Gods, he never meant to make any great religious or philosophical statements. That's fairly surprising, because I've seen Small Godfs recommended a few times to help folk get their minds around big religious issues (in fact I've passed it on that way myself). While Small Gods is part of the Discworld series, it's a stand alone, so you would be just fine reading it even if you haven't read any of his others. It centres around an idea that Pratchett's played with previous - that on Discworld the power of Gods depends in how many people believe in them. Within that though, Pratchett is asking a bigger ...  Read the complete review

The most self-contained and the cleverest of all Discworld novels. It stands alone as being the least part of 'series'. In fact if Discworld continuity is anything to go by, it took place at least 100 years before most of the other books. By the time Omnians make it to Ank Morpork in later books, they are post Brutha, are like to be called things like "Visit the Infidel with Informative Pamphlets" Not so in 'Small Gods'. Brutha, the novice - and indeed every other character - bow down to the Unmerciful - yet supremely righteous Great God Om. It is the time of the Prophet. Omnians can schedule their prophets ...  Read the complete review