Small Gods

Small Gods is the thirteenth of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, published in 1992. It tells the origin of the god Om and his relationship with his prophet, the reformer Brutha, and in the process satirises philosophy, religious institutions and practices, and the place of religion in political life.

The theology of the setting is worked out in comic detail. Omnia is a theocracy based on the Seven Books of the Prophets of Om, known collectively as the Septateuch, and its doctrine holds that the world is round and orbits the sun, whereas the Discworld is in fact flat and is orbited by its sun. Omnians believe in a single god, although the Discworld has many, including the billions of small gods. Brutha is a novice who wants peace and justice and wants the Inquisition to stop torturing him, which is the register the book works in.

The novel's joke is that belief and truth are separate matters. Om's power depends on how many people believe in him, which is why the small gods of the title matter, and the book's plot is an argument about what happens to a religion when its doctrine is more important than its deity.