Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

Another Terry Pratchett. But not a Terry Pratchett.

This book was a serious fantasy novel. Even poignant. Even touching. Not comedic. I chuckled once. In fact, the only thing which ties this novel into the previous Discworld series books is that it takes place on the same planet [okay, so maybe there's a little bit more than that]. So imagine a series of novels about New York City and using the same characters, and then you pick up one about Tibet.

Which is a decently accurate comparison for this tale. Brutha is a lowly monk in an extremely oppressive religion which has completely lost it's way from the god it worships, Om. In fact, Om comes back as a tortise, can't figure out why no one can hear him until he realizes that the religion which has evolved from belief in him has nothing to do with belief in his existence, but more belief in the structure of the religion. But Brutha is a humble and meek person - the type which should be a great prophet, but obviously not to everyone else.

In fact, I did like this book, but I can't see any motivation for the author to have included this in the Discworld series other than to have people seduced by the acclaimed success of the rest of the series and pick up this novel thinking it's apart of that genre (at least that's the reason why I bought it). I do admit that there are certain arguments in the book which would be lost on someone who didn't know the Discworld geography or belief systems. So, it's a built in belief system which doesn't need to be explained in one novel because it has been relayed through 13+ other stories.

Although this was a serious novel, not comedic (at least nothing that I could trace as comedy or satire), I felt that I cared for the main character - probably more than I've cared for some of the other characters in Pratchett's works. I'm really confused by the wikipedia entry on Small Gods because they claim that this book as "cheerful cynacism." Perhaps more books in the Discworld series are like this and less like the first few books. If so, I think I might not be as interested in them. My advice is to pick this one up long after you're comfortable with the Discworld experience and you want a break from quips, satire and laughing.