Small Gods

I’d put off Pratchett for years, some vague sense that comic fantasy wasn’t serious enough for the shelf space, and Small Gods is the book that made that sound as dumb as it was. The premise alone should tell you what you’re in for, the great god Om, stripped of nearly all his believers, stuck inhabiting a one-eyed tortoise with exactly one follower who actually believes in him rather than the church built in his name. That gap, between the institution and the actual faith supposedly underneath it, is the entire book, and Pratchett works it from every angle without ever once turning preachy about it.

The thing that got me is how funny it stays while doing that. I went in expecting either jokes or ideas and got both running at full speed the entire time, which I didn’t think was possible without one undercutting the other. Om learning what it means to be at the bottom of the food chain, literally, as a tortoise a hungry eagle can carry off, is as good a running gag as it is a genuine idea about power and dependency. You don’t need to know the rest of Discworld to read this. A couple of returning philosophers show up, but it stands entirely on its own.

If I have any hesitation it’s that the plotting loosens in the middle third, more essay than story for a stretch, but Pratchett earns that slack because what he’s actually saying is worth the digression. This is the kind of book I finished and immediately wanted to hand to someone specific, which for me is the real test. Fully deserves the five.