Terry Pratchett Book Club: The Thief of Time, Part III

Dec 27, 2023

Time's stopped. Guess we should ponder the effects of existence on mortal form.

Susan goes to talk to Death, who tells her that this mission is hers alone because if the end of the world is coming, he must ride out with the horsemen. He gives her the lifetimer of Lu-Tze to aid her in finding Time's child, and then the lifetimer of "the midwife" who can also aid in the search. Lobsang learns that Lu-Tze hasn't exactly killed the yeti because yeti save up their lives and go back to them if they die. The yeti takes them to their next destination. Susan shows up at Nanny Ogg's house, and questions her about the birth, about which Nanny's not planning to give away anything. Susan finds an egg timer that doesn't work in her house that contains a day's worth of time for her midwifing services. Susan tries to impress upon Nanny that's she's trying to help, and gets her to acquiesce. She tells Susan about the man coming to fetch her at different times and a very strange birth where the woman kept incarnating and dissipating out of fear. Susan mentions that the child was left at the Thieves Guild, and Nanny wants to know why she thinks it was a he. Lady LeJean is learning about being human and sabotaging Jeremy's work so it can't be completed. The Auditors are beginning to suspect something is amiss, so they send six more Auditors to assume human form and aid her in the completion of the task. But she knows human form much better than they do already…

The yeti leaves Lobsang and Lu-Tze at the edge of the snow on Copperhead mountain. They time slice to the valley and then Lu-Tze says they’re going to borrow a witch's broom to get to the city, even though that's technically against their order's rules. Lu-Tze points out that they’re being followed by a raven. (It's Quoth, of course.) They find a broom and head for the city on it. Lady LeJean and the Auditors arrive at Jeremy's to ask about the clock, and the newly bodied Auditors fight about the names LeJean gives them. A thunderstorm is needed to start the clock, and they create one even though that's against their rules. Just as they are about to proceed, Dr. Hopkins shows up to check on Jeremy. Lu-Tze and Lobsang see the storm suddenly gather and Lu-Tze tells his apprentice to slice time on the broom, even though he said they shouldn't. Lobsang tries and finds levels beyond the slice that he hadn't been told were there in his training. Lu-Tze tells him this is the Zimmerman level of slicing that practically no one else has ever achieved, and that he knows something is significant about Lobsang and his abilities; he encourages his apprentice to find out what he can do right now without worrying about if he can do it.

The Auditors are lying to Dr. Hopkins, insisting that they cannot drink tea or eat ginger biscuits because it's against their religion. They demand to start the clock now, and Jeremy gets a terrible headache, seeing flashes of light. As Hopkins rushes to give him his medicine, Lady LeJean picks up a hammer to hurl at the glass clock. Death goes to see Pestilence, Famine, and War (and Mrs. War) about riding out, but none of them want to—they’ve all become too human in their thinking to be interested and willing. One of the Auditors stops the hammer Lady LeJean has thrown in midair; they want the clock to start. Jeremy agrees and gets the clock ready to receive its lightning hit. Lobsang has to leave Lu-Tze behind to hit the slicing speed even faster than the Zimmerman crest they’ve hit, but he arrives right as the clock gets power and time stops. Mr. Soak, the dairyman, notices that time has stopped and sets out with his horse. Lobsang's personal Procrastinator kicks in, but it's going to run out of time and he has no one to wind it for him. He finds strawberry yogurt where Lu-Tze was, the kind Mr. Soak delivered. Then he meets Susan, who winds the Procrastinator for him, tells him "Ronnie" has his friend, and takes him inside to see the clock.

Susan kills an Auditor who shows up in the aftermath. Lu-Tze wakes in Ronnie Soak's dairy and learns that Ronnie is actually the fifth of the four horseman of the apocalypse, the one who left before the others got known. Susan and Lobsang finds the Auditors arriving at Sator Square for a meeting. They are arguing about having enough names for shades of color to give themselves names, and begin experimenting with violence. Susan tells Lobsang that they’re trying out human shape, making them more human. Lobsang's Procrastinator has stopped winding, but he's still capable of moving outside time. Lu-Tze talks with Ronnie and knows that the fifth horseman wants to know what he's horseman of—he claims Lu-Tze is one of his, and that he’ll bring him back to where he found him. The Auditors continue to find names, test out their bodies, and learn about new foods. Lobsang leads Susan to the Royal Art Museum, and Susan notices a famous painting actually shows all five horseman. The trouble is that the museum is full of Auditors trying to appreciate art, and they’re also full of upsets over having organs and hunger and an inability to comprehend paintings.

So we have an entire section devoted to the idea of how humanity is entirely wrapped up in physical experience, which dovetails beautifully with Susan's thoughts throughout the book about also being adjacent in her own way. I appreciate all this from a philosophical standpoint because that's ultimately what Pratchett is doing here—making a purely philosophical argument using the Auditors and horsemen as gateways of sorts.

With the Horseman, we’re reminded by Susan that they don't actually run their disciplines, they personify them. So Death runs into trouble as he tries to recruit the old team back for their apocalypse ride, and it's really a twofold problem: The first is that the group has inhabited human form for so long that they’re starting to take on more human traits (like the Auditors begin to do, shortly after), but the other issue is that these particular horsemen are no longer the sweeping figures they once were. Death doesn't notice this because he never stops being everywhere all the time, but disease can be mitigated and studied, famine doesn't happen on exactly the same scale as before, and war has been largely relegated to battles between ants.

So on the one hand, they’re all a little too human to care about the big apocalypse things. On the other hand, they’re not quite the powers they used to be. (And I do love Pratchett's insistence on this issue, having used it in Good Omens and also here, the idea that harbingers of the apocalypse must evolve with us and stay relevant, since they’re specters to us personally.)

And look, it's an extreme sidetrack on my part, but this is one of my favorite tropes that gets used a ton in Star Trek and not nearly enough in fantasy for my taste: the idea that taking on human form is just so distracting to people with completely different forms and existences that it becomes the ideal way to knock them off balance. (My favorite Trek episode to this tune is TOS’ "By Any Other Name," which sees, among other things, Scotty get an alien to drink himself into unconsciousness by pulling out bottles and saying things like "Uh… it's green" when questioned about their contents.)

Lady LeJean trying food is so much like Data trying alcohol after his emotion chip is installed (I hate this! More, please!): The effect of being disgusted is so new that it manages to be as pleasurable as it is abhorrent. The Auditors are still stuck with their usual modes of thought, but now they have to contend with organs and intrusive other thoughts and artwork. Who could possibly envy that. Also the preoccupation with colors—Mr. Dark Avocado is now my favorite name.

And then there's the other story factor here, being Susan's desire to meet someone like herself (and clearly having done so with Lobsang, though she's a little busy to fully appreciate it at the moment), and it strikes me as poetic in a way—obviously the child in question is not going to be related to one of the horsemen, but to another being far more kindred to Death, something that doesn't ever truly stop or change very much in our relation to it. So we’ll see where that leads.

Humans weren't individuals, they were, each one, a committee!

Sometimes the gods have no taste at all. They allow sunrises and sunsets in ridiculous pink and blue hues that any professional artist would dismiss as the word of some enthusiastic amateur who’d never looked at a real sunset.

It was a strange, hot sensation in his head. And how could a thought be hot?

Lu-Tze had long considered that everything happens for a reason, except possibly football.

Knowing how to use other people's vanity was a martial art all in itself, and Lu-Tze had been doing it for a long time.

A city might not need a king, but it can always use big rooms and some handy large walls, long after the monarchy is but a memory and the building is renamed The Glorious Memorial To The People's Industry.

She was being harassed by her internal organs.

And next week we’ll finish the book!