Equal Rites (Discworld)

Eskarina Smith was born with a slight impediment a wizard desperate to leave his staff to an heir was so delighted to find the eighth child of an eighth child neglected to make one last quality check. And so the first female wizard was born. Granny Weatherwax quickly realizes the magnitude of the problem - there was no one to teach Esk to manage wizardry that is exactly like handing a two-year-old the remote control to an armed nuclear submarine. Granny did her best by instructing Esk in witchery, but this was only a temporary diversion. If there was any hope for the wolves in Lancre, Esk must be sent to the Unseen University where, unfortunately, the most likely reaction to a girl who could cast spells was to make a maid out of her. On the way she meets Simon, a young wizard on the way to the University to gain his staff. Simon's a bit unusual; he's self-taught with a theoretical bent at a time when the average wizard had trouble keeping his cigar lit. Simon's talent wasn't simply useful, it was downright dangerous. So with Esk trying to work her way past wizardly sexism, Simon getting closer and closer to accidentally releasing all hell, and vague hints of romance Pratchett does what he always seems to do and make theater of the Absurd into a literary phenomenon. Deep down inside Pratchett is a true romantic warring with a soul that thinks everything is made from the blackest of cottage cheese. It always amazes me how he manages to keep a level of sarcasm, tell some horrendous puns, and still write a book that is every bit a whopping good story, with characters good and awful, but always charming. This is number three in the serious, and stands perfectly by itself, but reading all the books is compulsory anyway. You will enjoy all of them, like it or not.

I just re-read this book and came in to write a review, but I'm alarmed at the amount of hostility I find here! The story follows Eskarina Smith ("Esk"), at whose birth a dying wizard is present. He bequeaths to her his staff, amidst sundry pyrotechnics, of course, and Granny Weatherwax (See "Weird Sisters") takes the tyke under her wing. Apparently, Wizards and Witches are quite different kinds of people, and very early on, Esk displays the "frightening precociousness" that we see later in Tiffany Aching (of the "Wee Free Men" series). One must understand, I suppose, that many of the reviewers here have had little opportunity to get inside the head of an 8-year-old girl. You could probably split the reviews neatly in half along that line! Esk (and Tiffany after her) are idealizations --or cartoons, if you wish-- of how the male gender views junior members of the distaff sex. It's hard not to like her --despite her waywardness, which flows from the intense curiosity that is present in all human beings, but which is usually whipped out of us at an early age, especially those of us who are girls. In one fascinating scene, Eskarina, having successfully ditched Granny Weatherwax, explores the town, gets very hungry, goes into a tavern and asks for "a mug of goat's milk, please." It illustrates, stopping right there, her kind of polite stubbornness. There is something vaguely rural English about this temperament, which makes it hard, perhaps, for US readers to identify with. Unless you're paying attention to what is happening to Granny herself, you miss a good deal of the gender discourse here. There is little or no hostility in the book itself; the author presents a mirror to what happens in our society with humor and understanding, and just the right degree of impatience and ridicule. Granny is the only spokeswitch for the entire female sex, with the gentle support of Terry Pratchett himself. My complaints have to do with the fact that this book exists in a slightly different universe than the rest of the Discworld series (and even the Wee Free Men sequence, written primarily for children); as pointed out earlier, both Esk and Simon, and the "minor staff" of the Unseen University seem not to appear in subsequent books, except for the Librarian (Ook!). As to the "hurriedly finished" feeling noticed by some reviewers, I think I know what they mean, but honestly, this story is a good deal better than other Pratchett stories, where he does seem to panic about 90% of the way through, and begins to improvise furiously. But here, it works. Arch

I was surprised to discover that this book, the third in Pratchett's famous fantasy-parody series "Discworld", has received such mixed reviews. I have been introduced to Pratchett 10 years ago when I casually picked up "The Colour of Magic" (it had an interesting cover). I found it, however, rather disappointing; it was somewhat dull and humorless, with a convoluted plot and unmemorable characters (Rincewind remains to this date the one Discworld character that I utterly loath). But, I thought, there WAS something there, in the style of the author... so I picked up "Equal Rites". Imagine my delight when I discovered it to be a tight-paced, funny book, with memorable characters and an interesting plot. The plot is good: the eight son of an eight son is always a wizard, but in this case, Esk is born a girl, Discworld's first female wizard. Complications follow as the characters around her first seek to deny, then resolve this situation. Granny Weatherwax, Lancre's most famous witch, is introduced for the first time, and she remains one of my favorite characters. Esk, which some title as 'boring', is actually very cute and nicely-written: Pratchett is one of the few authors I know who doesn't use children for a cloying sort of cuteness or sentimentalism, and instead he writes her as her own person, with a distinctive and believable character. In consequence, she is much more endearing than many children characters. Her crush on Simon is, additionally, rather cute. Last but not least is the Staff, one of Pratchett's takes on Tolkien's Ring in creating an object with its own mind and presence; and it works; the Staff's protection of Esk is interesting, and its silent but determined conflict with Granny is hilarious. Except for the ending, which is a little vague, the book is consistently funny and interesting, and holds well on subsequent re-reading, which is more than I could say for "The Light Fantastic", the second book in the series, which is good on first reading but rather dull afterwards. All in all, this is the first great Discworld books, one of my favorites in the series, and I highly recommend it.

In this, the thrid book of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, a young girl is given a wizard's powers. Well everyone knows that a girl can't be a wizard! Girls are witches, and that's that.Esk is the eighth son of an eighth son... or at least she was supposed to be. The wizard that bestowed his staff and powers upon her died the second she was born and didn't know that the eighth son *wasn't* a son at all. As Esk grows she is taken as an apprentice witch by Granny Weatherwax, a wonderful, humorous old woman that doesn't take any nonsense, especially from that wizard's staff that has a mind of its own. But soon Granny discovers that the wizardly powers just won't stay out of it and that Esk must be taken to Unseen University for training. The only problem is that the Unseen University doesn't allow women, after all, wizardy is a man's world. Join Esk and Granny on their way to Ankh-Morpork and see what happens in this wonderful book.

This was the 1st Pratchett book I EVER bought and read VOLUNTARILY. Note the 'voluntarily'. It takes a great author and a great book to make ME actually spend money on a book. Since I read that book, Granny has become my favourite character on the entire disc (well, joint with Death), and I have BOUGHT AND READ her continuing adventures in Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad and Lords and Ladies all becuase of this book. Only one thing - when can we see the return of Esk?