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2) "Small Gods", Terry Pratchett.
I think that, years ago, this was the first Pratchett book I read, and it's a great place to start if you've never read Discworld before, as it's a stand-alone and covers a lot of the basic themes which Pratchett was interested in. I love the perfect twist at the end of a deus ex machina which feels like the natural and right way to end this story (with a few prods from Lu-Tze). And I'm impressed by the lengths to which he was able to carry the turtle imagery; there's the obvious parallel between the world-turtle and Om incarnate as a tortoise, and at the end the different metal turtles built by Vorbis and Urn, but I was thinking that Brutha somehow seems to embody as a human a sense of turtleness - a tortoiselike ability to withdraw his head when threatened and then keep on plodding toward his goal.
I think that, years ago, this was the first Pratchett book I read, and it's a great place to start if you've never read Discworld before, as it's a stand-alone and covers a lot of the basic themes which Pratchett was interested in. I love the perfect twist at the end of a deus ex machina which feels like the natural and right way to end this story (with a few prods from Lu-Tze). And I'm impressed by the lengths to which he was able to carry the turtle imagery; there's the obvious parallel between the world-turtle and Om incarnate as a tortoise, and at the end the different metal turtles built by Vorbis and Urn, but I was thinking that Brutha somehow seems to embody as a human a sense of turtleness - a tortoiselike ability to withdraw his head when threatened and then keep on plodding toward his goal.