Thief of Time

by Terry Pratchett

HarperCollins, May, 2001.
Hardcover, 336 pages.
ISBN: 0060199563

Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett

Time is taken pretty much for granted in Discworld, as it is in most places. But without the Monks of History, who regulate the distribution of Time, there would be no certainty that tomorrow would happen at all. For example, when you ask "Where did the Time go?" most likely it wasn't that you were having so much fun that Time seemed to go by quickly. More likely, the Monks has simply siphoned it out of your day to pump it somewhere where it was urgently needed, perhaps to a corporate boardroom full of Type-A personalities who never seem to have enough Time in a day. When a mysterious woman contracts with clockmaker Jeremy Clockson to create the world's first perfectly accurate clock, the Monks are very concerned. For the creation of a perfect clock will stop Time itself. It's up to monk Lu-Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd to find and stop the clockmaker, before Time runs out for everyone -- even Death himself.

Thief of Time is a hilarious send up of king fu movies, the nature of Time, Modern Education, and a host of other related and unrelated topics. Especially entertaining are Death's granddaughter, Miss Susan, who bucks the trend of Modern Education by actually requiring that her students learn something, the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse (he left the group before they became famous) and Qu, the Monk who provides exciting exploding gadgets to Monks on special missions. You need not have to have read any of the other 25 Discworld books to enjoy Thief of Time. But one thing's for sure: after reading it, you will want to track down all the other entries in this wildly entertaining and witty series.

--Claire E. White

Thief of Time is available for purchase on Amazon.com

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This review was published in the May, 2001 of The Internet Writing Journal.