The treatment of organised religion is… unsympathetic. I guess I should discuss the flaws in the book. I suspect Pratchett may have been intentionally trying to make this book accessible to new readers. But at the same time, Small Gods is not only narratively but, as it were, texturally different from the books that came before – there are, for instance, relatively few in-jokes and running gags from previous novels. In terms of writing style, Small Gods continues very much in the vein of the fantastic concluding portion of Witches Abroad – only here that brilliance extends throughout the entire book, with no portions of filler at all. Small Gods feels like the natural endpoint of those ruminations (not that these themes ever entirely go away in Pratchett), turning the lens on the biggest stories of all. Moving Pictures, Reaper Man and Witches Abroad were all about the power of stories, about images and reflections, and about dehumanisation, all set in a world where belief shapes reality. I could also I guess give a little bit of context: this is the thirteenth Discworld novel (though it was considered the twelfth at the time), and it follows and largely caps a run of novels with quite a distinct thematic focus. It is a satire of organised religion, and to a lesser extent of politics and of all coercive institutions. It’s set principally in the tyrannical theocracy of Omnia, and principally follows a young novice named Brutha, who is big, slow-thinking, but with a flawless photographic memory.
Small Gods is a standalone novel, set on the Discworld but with very, very minimal overt connections to preceding books (and almost as few to later books). I suppose I could begin by giving a quick blurb on what it’s about. This leaves me in something of a quandary, because it’s really quite hard to say all that much constructive about a book that’s just so brilliant as this. Most people will tell you that Small Gods is the best of all the Discworld books they’ll tell you that it’s Terry Pratchett’s magnum opus, and many of them will tell you that it is by any measure a brilliant book. (part of an ongoing project to re-read all the Discworld novels in order) And your God is a rock – and we know about rock.” That’s always been a point in their favour. Is it not that, deep down, you know that your gods are as shifting as your sands?”
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