In the first part of Thief of Time<\/i>, I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T KNOW WHAT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S GOING ON. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m confused.<\/p>\n
Wen the Eternally Surprised<\/b><\/p>\n
I feel like that should be my name. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s literally what I do for a living, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. ETERNALLY SURPRISED FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT.<\/p>\n
Anyway, oh lord, am I lost<\/i>. I cannot avoid saying this, but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t figure out what time this first scene takes place within. Modern time? Is it a flashback? Initially, I was ready to write it off as relatively unimportant. It felt like Pratchett just set up a joke at the beginning about the nature of time, but then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s this:<\/p>\n Clodpool hesitated. There was something about his master. There was a glow in his eyes and, when he moved, there were strange silvery-blue lights in the air, like reflections from liquid mirrors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Okay, what is that<\/i>? And who is the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153she\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that Wen refers to? Does he really possess some sort of power, or am I right in thinking this is just the set-up for a punchline? I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T KNOW.<\/p>\n Death<\/b><\/p>\n Is this a Death book? A Witches book? Do they just make appearances? Is this all about a new character, Jeremy Clockson? I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T KNOW? I also don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand the buttered toast thing, since the only reference I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m aware is that whole thing about buttered toast landing upside-down if you drop it. (So we should put them on the back of cats to test TRUE PHYSICS.)<\/p>\n Pratchett makes a big deal at the start of this about knowing the whole<\/i> story, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how Death makes his entrance into the book. Even if you set the toast bit aside (it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really hard for me to visualize physical descriptions), the only real<\/i> thing we get a confirmation of is the those damn Auditors are back. Something has gained their attention, and we all know from the last time that that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a good thing. Yet it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s upon that reveal that Death asks to see one of his memories (which he stores away, since he has so very many of them), and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M BACK TO BEING CONFUSED AGAIN. At the end of the scene, I wondered if Death himself had visited Nanny Ogg to ask for her services as a midwife, but the hooded character doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t speak in all-caps. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s this, too:<\/p>\n Then she took something out of her bag, which was now a good deal emptier and, brandy glass in her hand, sat down to look at it.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said at last, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that was\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 very unusual\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Does this have anything<\/i> to do the whole Five Horsemen thing? IS THIS A GOOD OMENS<\/i> CROSSOVER. Okay, probably not, as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure I would have heard something back when I read that book. Oh god\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 is the teddy bear mug reference meant to hint that SUSAN will be in this book?<\/p>\n I have nothing but questions.<\/p>\n Jeremy<\/b><\/p>\n Honestly, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re given a lot<\/i> of information at the start of Thief of Time<\/i>, so that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mostly what this review is. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m used to Pratchett being deliberately vague about the intent or aim of his books in the beginning of them, but this felt like a whole new level of confusing. At least I understand the very basic mechanics of watch-making, and at least Jeremy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s job has a direct relevance to the title. (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M SMART.) But then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Lady Myria LeJean, for who money is no object. All she wants is the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most accurate watch, and she wants Jeremy to build it. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of back-and-forth between them about what is and isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t possible, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that Lady LeJean knew<\/i> that if she spoke Jeremy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s language, she could convince him to work on the impossible.<\/p>\n Because what she describes is impossible, right? Timing a clock to the universe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tiniest mode of passing time? The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tick of the universe\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s described in the text. (Which Pratchett appears to be including in the book, too.) But the big question is left unaddressed: WHY? Why does Lady LaJean need this?<\/p>\n I know absolutely nothing, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kVLySUAWho8<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n -\u00c2\u00a0Please visit my new site for all announcements<\/a>. If you’d rather not have to rely on checking a website regularly, sign up for my newsletter instead<\/a>! This will cover all news for Mark Reads, Mark Watches, and my fiction releases.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the first part of Thief of Time, I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T KNOW WHAT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S GOING ON. Intrigued? 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