Pyramids, by Terry Pratchett

There’s something unhealthy about pyramids and the obsession with embalming corpses. Even the last departed King of “Djelibeybi”, the desert kingdom, thinks it’s stupid. Then the architect and his sons (of the firm “Necropolitan Builders”) do something strange with the design of his pyramid and the gods become embodied and the heir to the throne, assassin-in-training “Teppic”, has to come home from Ankh-Morpork to sort it out. While dealing with the confounded palace servants who simply do not listen to him, particularly about the palace toilets. As usual, it is very funny, and the parodies and puns in the people’s names are highly entertaining: “Dios” the high priest; “Ptaclusp”, the architect (taclus is old Welsh for neat, tidy, complete); Teppic (the German for carpet is teppich – you know, the flying kind found in places where there are deserts), etc. But there’s some seriousness too, about death and the afterlife and so on, and remember: Nil mortifi, sine lucre. (Meaning: No Death Without Money – the Assassins’ Creed.)