Equal Rites — Terry Pratchett

Cover of Equal Rites


Equal Rites
Terry Pratchett
283 pages
published in 1987

With the third novel in the series, Equal Rites, it became clear that the Discworld was more than just the sum of its characters. Gone were Rincewind, Twoflower and the Luggage, as an entire new setting and cast turned up. This wasn’t something that had been done much — or ever — in fantasy before, not often done after either. It must’ve seemed a bit of a gamble at the time, but this freedom to change protagonists and settings is what made the Discworld series, what has been keeping it from going stale for so long. If you don’t like one particular subseries, there are several others that you can read. Of course it also helps that Pratchett has been such a good writer for so long…

Equal Rites is the first Witches story, though the Granny Weatherwax that shows up here isn’t quite the one we get to know better in the later novels, differing somewhat even from how she’s portrayed in Wyrd Sisters three books onwards. The plot of the story is all about how if you’re a wizard on the verge of dying and looking for an eight son of an eight son to hand your staff over to, it helps to not be too hasty and check that eight son of an eight son isn’t actually a daughter…

Which it turns out to be and Eskarina “Esk” Smith duly turns out to have wizardly powers. Unfortunately, girls can’t be wizards and besides, in Bad Ass there’s nobody to teach her wizardry anyway. Instead, once her talents become too much to be ignored, she’s apprenticed to Granny Weatherwax to become a witch. Witchcraft is very different from wizardry though, much more headology and herb knowledge, less turning people into frogs or spewing flames from a staff.

It turns out to not be enough for Esk, she needs to learn proper magic and runs away to Ankh Morpork, followed by Granny Weatherwax. On the way she meets an apprentice wizard named Simon, one of the greatest magical talents the Unseen University has seen in eons. He’s very good in theoretical magic, where he can explain things so well that he can make his audiences become ignorant on a much more fundamental level than ordinary people. Simon, while brilliant and a decent bloke all around is unfortunately somewhat of a beacon for the things from the Dungeon Dimensions, always looking for a way into the Discworld, which is the dimensional equivalent to close to the shops and near the buses. Of course it’s up to Esk to save him, but she has her own problems as well, starting with the struggle to be actually taken seriously by the wizards of the Unseen University.

Equal Rites is beside the first witches book, also the first Discworld novel in which we get a closer look at non-Rincewind wizards, who don’t come out looking all that well. Chauvenistic, overtly proud, constantly scheming amongst each other to advance their careers (usually by making sure the wizard standing in their way is no longer doing so for reason of death), they’re still a while away from their later portrayals. Wizardry is also somewhat more dangerous than it would be later, with the wizardy death toll not insignificant here and in the next two books…

Though Pratchett is firmly on Esk’s side regarding her ambitions, he’s still fundamentally conservative here: the status quo of female witches and male wizards is quickly reinstated, Esk and Simon get their happy ending and exit stage left and nothing more is heard of female wizards for the rest of the series. There is somewhat of an separate but equal vibe to this whole wizards and witches setup, certainly in these early stages.

On the whole Equal Rites is a giant step forward in Pratchett’s evolution as a writer; it feels much more like a proper Discworld novel than the first two books did.

The Light Fantastic — Terry Pratchett

Cover of The Light Fantastic


The Light Fantastic
Terry Pratchett
285 pages
published in 1986

The Light Fantastic is of course the second Discworld novel and a direct sequel to The Colour of Magic starting in media res with Rincewind having fallen off the Disc. To his own amazement he does not actually fall to his death, but is saved by the Great Octavo Spell that had taken up residence in his head. It turns out that this hadn’t actually been an accident all those years ago that had gotten it in his head and all other magic spells afraid to stay near it, but had been in preparation for just this moment. The Discworld is heading towards a huge red star and unless the spell and its seven counterparts are said at exactly the right time, the world will be destroyed…

There’s three years between the publication of The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic and it’s noticable in Pratchett’s writing, which has improved a lot between the two novels. It’s also much less parody orientated, but still nowhere near the Discworld we’ve gotten to know and love. We do get a first glimmer of some of the subjects that Pratchett would engage more fully in later novels, including his humanitarianism. For the moment however, the Discworld is still much closer to a standard fantasy world than to what it would later become.

This might be a good point to say something about Pratchett’s humanitarianism. Though he does have a cynical side, in his heart he does seem to believe in the essential goodness and deceny of people. His villains mostly are people who have stopped thinking of other people as people: treating people like things is the original sin in Prachett’s worldview. Against it he puts the essential emotional sloppiness of his heroes, who with all their flaws are to a person willing to take a punt on the needs of the many if it means sacrifising the few. The first time this is really visible is still a few novels away, in Sourcery, but from The Light Fantastic onwards you can already see hints of this worldview coming to the fore.

In this novel, it’s the star people, the fanatics who start organising pogroms against wizards and other magical folk as the red star comes closer to the Discworld and magic starts to fail. These are the archetypical Pratchett villains, thought hey only play a bit part here: organised, systemic evil and firmly set against all the good things in life. Against that he sets the everyday moral failings of his heroes: Rincewind is a coward and the first to admit it, the Luggage is not very nice in general and let’s not even mention Cohen the Barbarian, whose job it is to slaughter pre-eminent religious authorities just because they have a habit of tying up temple maidens as sacrifice for their pet demons…

The Light Fantastic is a better novel than The Colour of Magic, but not yet a good novel. There’s promise, but it’s not being fullfilled yet.

The Colour of Magic — Terry Pratchett

Cover of The Colour of Magic


The Colour of Magic
Terry Pratchett
285 pages
published in 1983

The days are getting shorter, the nights are longer and I got the desire to reread some old favourites. It’s the time of year for comfort reading, as you may notice in my reading patterns from year to year and this time I wanted to lose myself in something actually good, rather than going for something mindless. Which is why I decided to reread the Discworld series from the beginning, though I won’t guarantee I’ll finish the series.

Which brings me to The Colour of Magic, the very first Discworld novel. Over the years it has gotten somewhat of a bad reputation amongst Pratchett fans as not being up to the standards of the series, not being as funny or interesting, not a good place to start the series as a new reader. All of which has a kernel of truth, but at the same time it was the novel that kickstarted the whole series and if it really had no merit, it would’ve been the last book in the series. It is rough and ready, it doesn’t quite fit in with the Discworld as it would evolve over the course of the series, but it still has a certain charm.

Most of this charm of course is due to the Discworld itself, one of the great fantasy creations, an idea so brilliant and yet so obvious you wonder why nobody else thought it up earlier to use as a setting for a fantasy series. The idea of the world being shaped like a disc, rather than a ball and carried by four elephants who themselves stand on the back of a giant turtle, with the moon and sun small satellites of the Disc, is of course inspired by various mythologies about the shape of the earth; Pratchett himself had used the idea of a discworld in a more dark humoured science fiction novel, Strata. But it was only in The Colour of Magic that he put it all together.

What he uses this wonderful setting for is parody,as he moves through several cliched fantasy adventures through the course of the novel, through the travels of the Discworld’s first tourist and his reluctant tour guide. It’s somewhat of a picaresque novel, a series of loosely connected adventures with no real overarching plot. It’s also incomplete, as it ends on a cliffhanger.

It all starts with the arrival of that first tourist, Twoflower in Ankh-Morpork, where luckily for him, he meets up with failed wizard Rincewind, a man who has honed his survival instincts to a fine edge, to the point that he’s already running away when most people would still ask why. As Twoflower takes a liking to him and once the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork explains he’s a citizen of the Agatean Empire, the richest, most powerful and secretive empire on the Discworld, it is in his best interests to steer Twoflower away from danger, Rincewind becomes his guide. Which is sorely needed as Twoflower himselfs believes the best of everything, is convinced that his status as tourist will shield him from all dangers and in general is blind to any danger.

Which is how he ends up selling innsewerants to a landlord for about twenty times the value of his pub, setting into motion a conflageration that consumes the whole city, leaving him and Rincewind to flee for their lives. From there on their travels take them on a tour of the whole Disc. It’s all in service of parody, as they meet up with heroes like Bravd the Hublander and the Weasel, Cohen the Barbarian and others vaguely reminiscent of other, more serious fantasy heroes..

What’s striking about these adventures is how crude it all is. Take Death for example, who is downright cruel is his appearances here, taking great pleasure in spoking Rincewind and actually taking the lives of various animals directly, not at all the mellow Death we learn to know and love only a few novels later. It doesn’t really feel like the real Discworld, with several elements contradicted by later novels (as shorta kinda worked out in Thief of Time).

All in all this is a decent enough read, but reading it in hindsight it’s clear Pratchett is still learning how to make the Discworld work for him, isn’t quite there yet. Reading it on its own will give you the wrong idea of what the Discworld series is really like.

Making Money – Terry Pratchett

Cover of Making Money


Making Money
Terry Pratchett
349 pages
published in 2007

Making Money is the latest in the Discworld series, a direct sequel to Going Postal, which I’ve read but not yet reviewed I see and again starring Moist von Lipwig, quite literally born again crook turned postmaster. This time however it’s not the post office Moist has to deal with getting back into shape, but something far more scary: the banks. But when the Patrician asks you to do a little job for him it’s usually impolite to refuse and besides, the old job’s getting boring anyway and his girlfriend, somewhat misnamed Adora Belle Sweetheart has run off to rescue some more golems.

So Moist goes along with the Patrician’s suggest to take a tour of the Mint and meet the current chairperson, Topsy Lavish, of the very rich and not very nice Lavish family, though she herself has only married into the family and does not enjoy the full Lavish family support. Only the fact that she has fifty percent of the bank’s shares, with her dog Mr Fusspot owning another one percent, kept her as chair so far. Topsy likes Moist and vice versa, as he could always get on well with her kind of old lady even though she knew immediately he’s some kind of grifter, a bit flash. Perhaps that’s why when she dies the day after Moist’s visit she leaves her dog to him, and her shares to the dog. And just after Moist had decided not to take the Patrician’s generous offer of becoming master of the mint too…

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