“Eppur si muove”
And yet it moves.
Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods is a sage tale for times when nothing is real, anything is possible, the rules are made up, and the points don’t matter.
In times where reality itself is under attack and science denialism is reaching pre-Renaissance levels of surreality; it is good to be reminded that yet, in spite of all the feelings getting in the way of all the facts; and in spite of the increasing dangers of speaking The Truth to a disbelieving mob; the turtle moves.
Start reading for the wit, stick around for the wisdom.
After all, what is not to love about profound quotes such as these?
“Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.”
“There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.”
“Belief shifts. People start out believing in the god and end up believing in the structure.”
Read correctly, Small Gods teaches us as much about the horror of group think, collectivism without consciousness, and obedience to “the greater good” as does Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer.