Equal Rites

I'm glad I'm rereading these. I only gave it three stars the first time, and... well this was really fun. We finally have Granny and more of the wizards. Esk was really fun and I liked watching her relationships with Granny and Simon develop. I loved seeing the witch magic vs wizard magic and headology. I'm not super into the Dungeon Dimension stuff, but it was all really well done.

A story about the first female Wizard in the Disc World, where women are usually enchantress or witches

My overall impression of Pratchett is this
- tries to squeeze some sort of joke or pun into every sentence
- gives an absurd meaning to an otherwise well established but somewhat unusual concept
- I don't like most of those, and so all is left is the characters, the plot and his fantasy world
- I don't like those either

Although this is officially the third Discworld book, I think of it as the first real Discworld book, because it's the first one in which Pratchett managed to write a coherent plot and set the style for future Discworld books. The two preceding books were false starts.

This one also introduces Granny Weatherwax, one of the leading characters of the Discworld.

The first half of the book is enjoyable, endearing, and often funny. It makes quite a good introduction to the Discworld. The second half, unfortunately, begins to take itself too seriously, though it remains readable and doesn't entirely lose its sense of humour.

Apart from Weatherwax, we also meet two young wizards, Eskarina and Simon, both of whom are over-powered. This is quite fun initially, as Eskarina performs various amusing magical feats; but in the longer term it's a mistake to give anyone limitless magical powers, because it destroys the story. If any problem arises, they should be able to magic it away; and, if they can't, you wonder why not.

Doubtless because of this problem, in subsequent Discworld books I think Simon is never seen again; Eskarina reappears briefly in two books right at the end of the series.

Granny Weatherwax appears here with her character and attributes surprisingly well-defined, and stays much the same in later books. However, it seems rather out of character for her to get into a magical duel with a wizard; I think Pratchett might have taken that out if he'd ever gone back and released version 2 of the book.

I frankly dislike the whole phenomenon of the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions. It seems to me that Pratchett first over-powered his young wizards, and then tried to restore some challenge to the plot by introducing something fearsome enough to worry them. That's what makes the second half of the book too serious. Better not to over-power them in the first place. If you're going to have magic in a story, make sure that it has definite limits, and preferably try to explain what the limits are. That way, you can give your wizards real challenges without needing to invent over-the-top scary monsters.

This is the third book in the Diskworld series and it feels like Pratchett was finally getting into his stride with this one. The first two books are a bit too episodic and incoherent, but this one is much more clearly plotted. Some people have complained about a lack of humour ("lack" being a relative term where Pratchett is concerned) however, personally, I would rather sacrifice some of the scattergun jokes for a better plot.

The first two books had me a little concerned that my rose tinted glasses were a little wonky, but this has left me much more confident about continuing on with the series.

Executive Summary: Not as funny or as quotable as [b:The Light Fantastic 34506 The Light Fantastic (Discworld, #2; Rincewind #2) Terry Pratchett https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1389554927s/34506.jpg 592532], but very enjoyable for other reasons.Full ReviewI had to double check the year this was written. This book still feels very relevant today.Wizards can only be men. Witches can only be women. Their magic is different and shouldn't be mixed. A women has no place learning to be a wizard. Witches “have their place”. Does any of this sound familiar?As someone who works in a field that is far too lacking in women the idea that certain disciplines are more suited for men or women is still a stigma we seem to be fighting today.That isn't to say this book is preachy or in your face about it. It simply that the satire is definitely more directed at real world issues than fantasy tropes like the first two books. It sounds like this sort of thing is more common in later books, so I find it interesting that he changed up the style so early on in the series.And while it wasn't quite as funny to me as [b:The Light Fantastic 34506 The Light Fantastic (Discworld, #2; Rincewind #2) Terry Pratchett https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1389554927s/34506.jpg 592532], there were more than a few laugh out loud moments and quotes that I highlighted for later.Plus, Granny Weatherwax is a great character. I've read that she changes quite a bit in the [b:Wyrd Sisters 34504 Wyrd Sisters (Discworld, #6; Witches #2) Terry Pratchett https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1275974472s/34504.jpg 1494222] and beyond, but I'm glad I can see how she started out before I jump into that.Overall this book had to do something right, because I pretty much tore through it in a weekend, which despite it's short length is still rather fast for me.I already jumped right into [b:Mort 386372 Mort (Discworld, #4; Death, #1) Terry Pratchett https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388181166s/386372.jpg 1857065] as Discworld seems to have its hooks into me right now.

This is a short, very witty, pretty silly and overall delightful book about a wizards and witches in the Discworld universe. The first of the “Witches” sub-series introduces you to one of my favorite witches of all time and the tale hosts a bit of adventure, questioning paradigms and of course magic.

On the surface of it I should love Discworld novels, but for some reason I've never been able to get into them. But I think I've worked out why .... Many years ago I was stuck in an airport waiting for hours and hours for a flight and out of desperation I bought a book almost at random. That book was The Colour of Magic. To be truthful, I didn't think all that much of it probably because I was rather annoyed and upset at having to waste the best part of a day.

So, unfortunately that was as far as I got with Discworld books. But following on from the sad news of Pratchett's death I thought I'd give them another go. This time starting off on a different thread of stories beginning with Equal Rites (1987). Equal Rites was Pratchett's third novel but his first Witches story

I'm not going to run through the plot, suffice to say that the clue is in the title: a wordplay on the phrase “Equal Rights”. The premise is rather original and fresh; why shouldn't a girl become a wizard despite the misogynistic cultural expectations that she shouldn't?

The main protagonist, Esk is only eight years old. I'm not quite sure why Pratchett chose someone so young? Did he want the book to appeal to an adolescent audience? I'm not sure, but Esk acts more like a young adult. I suppose the charm of the tale lies in the fact Esk is rather innocent which leads to all manner of sticky situations. The main problem here is that Esk manages to overcome most of these by using the magic staff. Sometimes not having an obvious means of escape from certain situations is more enjoyable for the reader as the author has to become inventive instead of lazily using supernatural means.

The other main protagonist, Granny Weatherwax, while being a witch tends not to use magic all that often rather she uses a version of psychology called headology which I thought was a neat twist and a clever idea.

I felt that the characters were more developed than what I'd expect and Equal Rites seemed to have a structure to it: a start, middle and end. I felt that the one book I'd read before was just a series of amusing events which kind of blended into some sort of narrative. By the end of the book I'd worked out that Pratchett's characterizations are perhaps more important that the story? I'm not sure if other readers would agree with me or not?

But saying that the book, as you would expect, is full of humour and insights into human weaknesses and faults. I guess at the time of writing this Pratchett was still finding his feet as an author, but you wouldn't know as it's a polished effort which is entertaining throughout.

Pratchett plays around with feminine and masculine expectations and highlights gender gaps in simple but effective ways. While he makes hazy generalisations which may be a little too broad for some he's especially critical of the stuffy kind of academic elitism which exists within certain male dominated institutions.

So in summary, I'm pleased that I decided to pick up a Pratchett book again. Equal Rites was a quick and easy read which was a lot of fun. The characters were especially interesting and well developed and I'd be happy to recommend Equal Rites as a jumping off point for anyone who wants to try to get into Pratchett's work for the first time.