Thief of Time

1

From the old saying: Procrastination is the thief of time.

Terry comments on the inspiration for Thief of Time:

“The genesis for ToT, for me, was an article I read a few years ago about a genuine glass clock, with one metal component (the image of it shattering in slow motion tends to stick in the mind) and I believe it was made in Germany. The idea of a perfect clock stopping Time seemed an inevitable next step. This made it a ‘Susan’ book, because she’s not a creature of time… which brought in Death and the Auditors, with their known animosity to life… and so it went.”

2

A reference to the 1997 movie Titanic.

3

Refers back to the conversation Susan had with Albert back in Soul Music:

4

The name “Myria” resonated with the English word “myriad”, meaning “a vast number” or “comprised of a large number of things”.

In the Bible, Mark 5, Jesus encounters a man in the country of the Gadarenes who is possessed by not one, but a multitude of unclean spirits: “And [Jesus] asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.” (Jesus allows the spirits to leave the man, and enter a herd of swine instead.)

In other words (and as Susan will also explain later), Myria(d) LeJean/legion is a perfectly appropriate name for a large group of (evil) spirits controlling a human body.

5

We’ve encountered Xeno the philosopher and his paradoxes before, in Pyramids. See the various ‘philosopher’ annotations for that book.

6

Reference to our world’s Grimm’s Fairy Tales, after the influential volumes of folk and fairy tales collected and published in the nineteenth century by the German brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

7

‘Soto’ is the last name of Marco Soto, who won a charity auction for the right to appear as a character in a Discworld novel.

8

Echoes of the ‘Crane’ technique’ made famous by the The Karate Kid movies. Martial Arts in general, and Kung Fu in particular, have many techniques and styles named after animals, e.g. ‘Stance of Horse’.

There’s of course also Wile E. Coyote’s ‘stance’ — suspended in mid-air for seconds before dropping into the ravine — from the Roadrunner cartoons.

9

Later in the book (p. 138) Lobsang says building a clock that would tick with the universe would be impossible because “it would be like opening a box with the crowbar that’s inside”, but that’s just what happens here because Jeremy has some help. A nice little precursor.

10

Circular breathing is the technique of breathing in through the nose while simultaneously breathing out through the mouth. This allows musicians playing a wind instrument to hold a single note for minutes at a time, if necessary.

11

We have met Mrs Marietta Cosmopilite in several previous books starting from Moving Pictures.

12

A reference to the ‘grasshopper’ nickname from the Kung Fu television series.

13

Coelacanths are the oldest living fish known to date. In 1938, a Coelacanth was found off the east coast of South Africa. Up to then, these animals were considered to have been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous era.

14

Indeed he has. This story is told in greater detail in Small Gods.

15

Qu is of course the Discworld version of Q, head of the technical branch of the British Secret Service in the James Bond movies, who was played by Desmond Llewellyn until his death in 1999.

This entire scene is written in the style of the classic James Bond / Q dialogues. Terry says:

“As I wrote it I could [hear Llewellyn’s voice], too. Qu will be back — unlike, alas, Desmond Llewellyn.”

16

‘Instant Karma!’ is the title of a well-known John Lennon track.

17

‘Repent Harlequin! Said the Ticktock Man’ is the title of a classic science-fiction short story by Harlan Ellison. It describes a dystopian society, ruled and time-regulated down to the microsecond by the Master Timekeeper, aka the Ticktock Man. The Timekeeper is challenged by the free-spirited Harlequin (who is never on time — a crime punishable by death in that society).

18

Reference to the game ‘charades’.

19

Susan met the Tooth Fairy in Hogfather. The Soul Cake Duck is the Discworld equivalent of the Easter Bunny. Old Man Trouble refers to the Gershwin song ‘I Got Rhythm’: “Old Man Trouble, I don’t mind him”.

20

Reminiscent of the criminal protagonists in Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 movie Reservoir Dogs (Mr White, Mr Orange, Mr Blonde, Mr Pink, Mr Brown and Mr Blue). Note how ‘Mr Blonde’ maps to ‘Miss… Yellow’.

21

Strange attractors are a concept from mathematics, specifically the study of chaos theory and dynamical systems.

22

The Bible, Revelation 6:7: “And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him”.

23

The White Rabbit in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is always late (i.e. having trouble with time) and anxious: “Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it’s getting!”.

24

As the nursery rhyme goes: