6 Comments

  1. Armcie

    Re: the timeline. The main bits of evidence for it being in the present is the Ankh Morpork stuff being recognisably now. The thing that puts it 100 years ago is the shared characters (particularly the philosophers) with Small Gods.

    This is somewhat addressed in Thief of Time. “Seen through her business eye, history was very strange indeed. The scars stood out. The history of the country of Ephebe was puzzling, for example. Either it’s famous philosophers lived for a very long time, or they inherited their names, or extra bits had been stitched into history there. The history of Omnia was a mess. Two centuries had been folded into one, by the look of it, and it was only because of the mind set of the Omnians whose religion in any case mixed the past and future with the present that it could possibly have passed unnoticed.” p157 (out of 316 if page numbering issues happen)

    So the answer to whether it took place now or 100 years ago is probably “both.” Blame the history monks.

    • Thanks Armcie! We’ll have to revisit this when we get up to Small Gods and Thief of Time, but it also helpfully explains why some of the Djelibeybatian characters are confused about whether it was the Century of the Fruitbat or Century of the Cobra!

    • erinacea

      I know I’m chiming in late, but I agree that it’s mostly the philosophers that date the story as older. Aside from the History Monks (to whom the fandom basically attributes all anachronisms and inconsistencies related to time), this can also be explained to the time shenanigans catapulting Pteppic, Ptracy and You Bastard into some kind of time pocket 100 years earlier in Ephebe.

      Can’t wait for you guys to get to Small Gods!

  2. Sicarius

    Surprisingly for a one-off novel, this is still one of my favorite books of the entire Discworld series. It doesn’t benefit from the character development and worldbuilding that, say, Night Watch does nor does it include a great big ensemble assembly like The Last Hero. I really enjoyed the Assassin’s Guild test, and I think Pyramids is where Pratchett starts to take Discworld away from traditional fantasy stories, especially in how he highlights the contrast between Ankh-Morpork and more exotic Circle Sea nations. It feels more cosmopolitan than Sourcery or Equal Rites, somehow, in a way that Pratchett didn’t really get back to until Moving Pictures and Reaper Man.

  3. Franco

    [Apologies that I have come late to this particular episode of the podcast]. I only got around to listening this week after finally re-reading the book over the past few weeks]
    My question: Did you consider the meaning of the name “Dios”? It is literally the Spanish word for god (and a modernization of the Latin word.). I wonder why Pterry chose this particular name. It can’t have been coincidence.

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