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In equal rites, a dying wizard tries to pass on his powers to an eighth son of a eighth son, who is just at that moment being born. The fact that the son is actually a daughter is discovered just a little too late.
Granny and Cutangle are either the will they/won't they drama of the century, the buddy cop comedy of the century, or the trope-filled flirty romcom of the century, possibly all of the above, probably all at the same time, and I for one couldn't be happier about this development. This book was a wonderful read, though it did stall in the middle for me for reasons I can't quite pin down. Granny is my favorite character, and Esk follows behind her a close second, being the diligent student that she is. The first part of this book, taking place in Bad Ass, and the third part, taking place in Unseen University, were the best bits of Pratchett's Discworld I've experienced thus far. I try not to wax poetic about the man's writing in my reviews, seeing as that point has been made a time or two before, but the humor in this book particularly hit me, and I just wanted to note my favorite quote, one I suspect I may remember for at least a little while, "I can see you've been getting ideas below your station" - Granny (of course). ( )
Reread 2024: I can't believe my first and only time reading this one was back in 2009. I'm glad to have reread it. I had forgotten that ending. Absolutely loved Granny's sort of romance with the Arch Chancellor lol And no female wizards because of lore! Plus Headology :D As always I enjoyed Pratchett's societal commentary that pops up often in the Discworld. ( )
Començar 2021 amb Pratchett ha estat la millor decisió.
Em sembla impressionant lo rellevant que segueix sent una novela com aquesta escrita als anys 80. I em reafirmo en que el català li senta molt bé (sense poder comparar gaire la traducció es excelent).
Que pasaria si els mags fossin dones? Eskarina revoluciona el mon de la magia en una novela curta plena de reflexions i conceptes com la closcalogia. Un final in crescendo amb molta filosofia i concepció de l’univers en uns nivells que no m’esperava d’aquesta lectura.
Fun if not amazing. Funny all the way through. Fantastic introduction to Granny Weatherwax and some fun exploration of the Unseen University library. Definitely has a feel of "young Discworld." ( )
Thanks to Neil Gaiman, who loaned us the last surviving copy of the Liber Paginarium Fulvarum, and a big hallo to all the kids at the H.P. Lovecraft Holiday Fun Club.
I would like it to be clearly understood that this book is not wacky. Only dumb redheads in Fifties' sitcoms are wacky.
No, it's not zany either.
First words
This is a story about magic and where it goes and perhaps more importantly where it comes from and why, although it doesn't pretend to answer all or any of these questions.
Quotations
They both savoured the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than ordinary people, who were only ignorant of ordinary things.
For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.
Esk, of course had not been trained, and it is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you are attempting can't be done. A person ignorant of the possibility of failure can be a half-brick in the path of the bicycle of history.
... she was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you.
It has already been revealed that light on the Discworld travels slowly, the result of its passage through the Disc’s vast and ancient magical field. So dawn isn’t the sudden affair that it is on other worlds. The new day doesn’t erupt, it sort of sloshes gently across the sleeping landscape in the same way that the tide sneaks in across the beach, melting the sand castles of the night. It tends to flow around mountains. If the trees are close together it comes out of woods cut to ribbons and sliced with shadows.
On the horizon were low hills, eroded not by wind or rain in this weather-less place, but by the soft sandpaper of Time itself.
“Aye tell you, girl, a white magician is just a black magician with a good housekeeper.” – Mrs. Whitlow
Fossils were well known on the Discworld, great spiraled shells and badly constructed creatures that were left over from the time when the Creator hadn’t really decided what He wanted to make and was, as it were, just idly messing around with the Pleistocene.
One thing the water couldn’t do was gurgle out of the ornamental gargoyles ranged across the roof. This was because the gargoyles wandered off and sheltered in the attics at the first sign of rain. They held that just because you were ugly didn’t mean you were stupid.
The frills were getting to her, they gave pink a bad name.
Last words
They got it absolutely right and it would probably have important implications for the universe if it hadn't, next time the University flooded, been completely washed away.
In equal rites, a dying wizard tries to pass on his powers to an eighth son of a eighth son, who is just at that moment being born. The fact that the son is actually a daughter is discovered just a little too late.
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Book description
The last thing the wizard Drum Billet did, before Death laid a bony hand on his shoulder, was to pass on his staff of power to the eighth son of an eighth son. Unfortunately for his colleagues in the chauvinistic (not to say misogynistic) world of magic, he failed to check on the new-born baby’s sex…
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Wikipedia in English
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