Thief of Time is the third Discword novel about Susan Sto Helit (or the fifth Death novel, depends on how you count) by Terry Pratchett. [My reviews of the other Discworld novels here.]

Plot:
Jeremy is the best clock maker there ever was. Which is why he gets approached by the mysterious Lady LeJean to build the perfect clock. What he doesn’t know is that if he actually achieves it, he will manage to capture Time and stop time, leading to the end of the world. So Death, who is a fan of the humans, asks his granddaughter Susan Sto Helit to help with the situation, while the History Monks as well, in the form of Lu-Tze and his apprentice Lobsang, try to prevent the worst.

I really enjoyed Thief of Time. It’s well-paced and fun. Plus, I loved the History Monks. Perfectly entertaining.

Terry Pratchett is one of those authors who knows how to play with time. And it is rare to find stories that play with time in that way – to not have time travel but to think about the way time works and to take the phrases we use everyday that involve time to their literal conclusion.

But quite apart from all the timey-wimey bits, the book is just absolutely funny. My favorite bit was:

You had to hand it to human beings. They had one of the strangest powers in the universe. Eve her grandfather had remarked upon it. No other species anywhere in the world had invented boredom. Perhaps it was boredom, not intelligence, that had propelled them up the evolutionary ladder.

Plus, Pratchett’s pacing is spot-on and I just love his characters – Death, Susan, Lobsang, Lu-Tze, etc etc etc.

In short, this is definitely one of the better Discworld books.