Review: Interesting Times

Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett
eBook

My rating: 4 of 5 stars




Interesting Times was first published in 1994, is the 17th discworld and fifth Rincewind novel.

A typical sign that the discworld book you are holding in your hands is about Rincewind is when it starts with the gods playing games, and when the Lady is involved.
This time, she sends him to the Counterweight Continent and against the plans of Fate (once again). Together with Twoflower, his daughters, Cohen and other barbarian heroes, he is set against the five noble families fighting for the throne of the dying Emperor. The poor wiz(z)ard! How will he manage to survive between five armies, a cunning Grand Vizier and the expectations of his companions?

I frequently find myself pitying Rincewind. He never asked for the adventures he gets involved in. He certainly doesn't want to meet Death quite so often (although I like seeing him in a discworld novel).
At the end of FaustEric, it wasn't mentioned where he got to, but Interesting Times finds him on his own on a nice, calm island. Sure, he didn't enjoy it all that much, since it didn't have potatoes, but it must have been better than being magicked back to Unseen University and then on to the Counterweight Continent. I wonder what will happen to him on the mysterious continent he ended up on at the end of Interesting Times...

The novel was filled with social criticism even I understood. What's the use of war? Is a revolution for the people really the right thing to do when you don't know what those people want? And is barbarism actually worse than civilization? Terry Pratchett certainly has his very special way of answering these questions and entertain his readers at the same time.
There is only one question I was not able to answer for myself: why is War's daughter called Clancy? Since his sons are Terror and Panic, I didn't quite get that. Does anybody know?


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Review: Eric

Eric by Terry Pratchett
eBook


My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Eric, first published 1990, is the ninth discworld book, and the first published as illustrated novel. Sadly, the Kindle version I was reading included neither the illustrations by Josh Kirby, nor the alternating page titles of Eric and Faust. It is also a Rincewind novel.

If you've read the older books revolving around the inept wizard, you already know that he has vanished to the dungeon dimensions in Sourcery. Now he gets a chance to come back - a one in a million chance, to be exact. They always work.
Eric is only a boy, but he is obsessed with summoning a demon to get three wishes: to live forever, to get the most beautiful woman of the world, and to be the ruler of the world. Instead of a demon, though, it's Rincewind who appears in the circle and has to play the role of a demon. He is quite surprised, in fact, that snapping his fingers has any effect at all...
Oh, and the effect it has! Rincewind and Eric are taken to an empire in Klatch, where the people are waiting to meet the ruler of the world - to complain. Only, complaining in an annoyed tone of voice is not their style, they're more the torture and kill types. They are rescued by the Luggage, of course, and with another finger snapping end up in a big wooden horse.
In Pyramids, the thing with the wooden horse was already extensively covered, but here's a short summary: Ephebe and Tsort are Terry Pratchett's parody on the Trojan war. In this war, though, the civilians try selling food to fighting soldiers and the Luggage gets to chase a lot of people. Before snapping his fingers again, Rincewind meets his ancestor Lavaeolus, who invented the horse and all tactics surrounding it. He can't bring himself to tell him that a long, 10 year journey lies before him...
Then Eric and Rincewind end up at the beginning of the universe, to have a nice chat with the creator (who creates an egg and cress sandwich for the wizard). To live forever means to start out at the beginning... But not with Rincewind! He makes Eric reverse his summoning of him, taking them both to hell.
How they escape from there as well, and what bureaucracy can do to hell, I'll leave up to you to find out.

So, what can I say about the book? It had Rincewind, the Luggage, a stupid teenager, Death, demons... Some references reminding me of Good Omens and a lot of travelling to strange places. I know some people really disliked Eric, but I enjoyed it as much as the other discworld novels I read so far.


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Review: Sourcery

Sourcery by Terry Pratchett
eBook

My rating: 4 of 5 stars






I must admit that I'm growing quite fond of Rincewind, the inept wizard. It's a pity he tends to disappear, or probably die, at the ends of his novels. I never know whether or not he will be back.

Anyway, Sourcery (first published 1988) is about the eighth son of an eighth son (wizard) of an eighth son: a sourcerer. They are very, very powerful, sourcerers (= sources of magic), and also very rare. There is a reason why wizards don't have much, or any, contact with women... And it can get worse when the sourcerer's father wants revenge for being banished from Unseen University for having fallen in love.
Rincewind, together with Conina (the daughter of Cohen the barbarian) and the Luggage sets out to save the Archchancellor's hat, symbol of wizardry, from the sourcerer, only to find that the hat has plans of its own, which could lead to the Apocralypse, the end of the world. In order to stop the oncoming mage war, Rincewind has to kill the sourcerer, a ten-year-old boy who is forced to help wizards rule the discworld.

As always, Rincewind goes about the business of being an involuntary hero using his rodent-like talent to escape death and arguing with his consciousness about what should be done in contrast to what would be sensible to do. To make matters worse, he (and the Luggage) both fall in love (symptoms: sweaty palms, hot sensation in stomach, skin of chest made of tight elastic, someone running hot steel into spine), which leads to the Luggage getting seriously drunk and lost.
In addition to Rincewind and the Luggage, the novel is populated with weird and funny characters. There's Conina, forced to be a heroine by genetics but wannabe hairdresser, Nijel the Destroyer, a wannabe hero, and Creosote, a rich wannabe poet. They all have their own to contribute to save the discworld from destruction when the Gods vanish and the Ice Giants return.

Sourcery was a lot of fun to read, finally making Rincewind one of my favourite Terry Pratchett characters. You shouldn't read it without having read the other Rincewind novels first, though.
Compared to the last discworld book I read, there was a lot less repetition this time, which made me all the more happy. I'm already looking forward to the next book (and regretting slightly that I'm going by publishing order, since I want to know how Rincewind gets back)!


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Review: Mort

Mort by Terry Pratchett
eBook

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Mort (first published 1987) is the first Death novel in Terry Pratchett's discworld series. The book follows Mort, a youth consisting mostly of elbows and knees whom his parents send to seek apprenticeship. None of the regular people want him, but just when he is about to give up, Death enters the scene. His offer is reasonable, especially for a boy like Mort, who is eager to learn the secrets of the universe.
Death takes him shopping in the big city before they settle down at his realm outside of time. There, Mort meets Albert, Death's faithful servant, and Ysabell, Death's daughter (adopted). They don't get along all that well, like teenagers of opposed sexes often do, but Mort is busy taking care of Binky, the horse, and accompanying Death on Duty anyway.
When Death decides to take a few days off, it's Mort's turn to take care of the Duty, and he massively fails when confronted with a beautiful princess and her assassin. He kills the assassin instead of letting the girl die, causing reality to break apart, while Death is busy learning how to be more human and less anthropomorphic personification. With only Ysabell and maybe Albert as support, Mort has to decide if and how to make up for his mistake.

I've long been a fan of the Death of the discworld and therefore enjoyed reading Mort immensely. The story is filled with interesting characters like the princess Keli, a young wizard called Cutwell, and of course Death, Albert, Ysabell and Mort himself. Guest stars, by the way, include the wizard Rincewind and the librarian of Unseen University.
The novel offers an appealing storyline, throughout which we can watch Mort - and partly also Ysabell - grow up. It ends in a furious battle of life and death between Mort and Death, but the outcome will of course not be revealed here. Let me just say that it came as a surprise, but at the same time didn't surprise me at all.
If you are a fan of humorous fantasy stories flavoured with a young love story, you could definitely read this book and not be disappointed.

There is one thing, though, caused by the British Books Challenge 2012 and my goal to read all discworld novels, that is starting to annoy me. In Mort alone were at least three mentions of the slow light of the discworld. This was also mentioned in all previous books, and I really, really want to say "Yes, I know, stop telling me!" So, maybe it's a good thing I'm having an unplanned hiatus at the moment, reading K.J. Bennett's  Pike's Quest, which I got for free last week. Since the author is British, expect a review of that next!

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Review: The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett
eBook

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett is the sequel to his first discworld novel, The Colour of Magic. Published three years after the first, in 1986, the book starts off where we were left, with Rincewind the inept wizard falling from the disc. The Octavo, a very potent grimoire, goes to great length to save his life - or, to be more exact - to save one of the Eight Spells of the creator, which had taken up lodging in Rincewind's head some years previously. One moment falling right into space, next moment he finds himself in a wood of talking trees. He is reunited with the tourist Twoflower, but we never get to know what happened to Tethis the water troll, who was inside the Potent Voyager, a space capsule, with him.
Rincewind and Twoflower continue their travels across the disc, being pursued by wizards and accompanied by yet another hero, Cohen the Barbarian. This time, they meet druids building a kind of magical computer, they take a short stroll through Death's realm, are kidnapped, then saved by trolls, and so on. All the time, a new, red, menacing star grows bigger in the sky, threatening to destroy the discworld. Or is it? In any case, it is driving people mad with fear and curiosity.

I liked this second discworld novel quite a bit more than the first. It has more of a storyline; it was clear quite early that the goal would be to return to Ankh-Morpork and everything that happens somehow works towards this goal. Then comes the showdown, epic fights and heroic deeds (done by Rincewind, who was the greatest coward ever known before). The sudden change of character fits, though, as he is finally home and tired of running away again.
Disappointing, for me, was that we still don't know what happened to Hrun the Barbarian and Tethis from The Colour of Magic. Books that give no satisfactory explanation of the disposition of some of their characters, however minor they may be, always upset me.

Overall, it was a good read. The Light Fantastic is funny and exciting, but now that I'm getting used to reading Terry Pratchett again, and the first excitement for reading the whole series has faded, I can't help noticing that his later novels are, well, better. I'm looking forward to continue with the discworld novels and follow the author's development.



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Review: The Colour of Magic

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The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
eBook

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


In his first discworld novel, first published in 1983 (two years older than me!), Terry Pratchett takes the reader on a tour around his magical world by sending the first ever tourist of the discworld, Twoflower, to explore it. He is accompanied - most unwillingly - by the inept wizard Rincewind, and his (the tourist’s) Luggage, a huge wooden chest made of sapient pearwood, which follows him wherever he goes and keeps his belongings save by eating those who want to steal it. On their travelling from Ankh-Morpork to the Hublands to the Rimfall, Twoflower and Rincewind meet many people and monsters, from thieving heroes to imaginary dragons. The ending is left open and will be continued in the next novel, The Light Fantastic, or so I have heard.

I had some minor problems with the book, mainly because I have already seen the movie twice and, as is so often the case, comparison is a bad idea but hard not to do. Even with the difference which irritated me, though, I enjoyed the book and had to smile at several occasions. The optimistic, naive and - most of all - curious Twoflower and his counterpart, the pessimistic, seemingly ill-starred Rincewind, are a great team when it comes to surviving all that Fate (the God) happens to throw their way, and they entertain the reader at the same time. Admittedly, they receive some help from the Lady in that great board game the Gods play...
The only thing that really irks me is the matter of Hrun the Barbarian, who joins Rincewind and Twoflower at the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth and simply vanishes after their clash with the people of the Wyrmberg. I hope he will return with some kind of explanation in the next book.

For readers who want to get to know Terry Pratchett and/or the discworld, I can definitely recommend The Colour of Magic. The skilled writer that he is, Pratchett manages to describe the discworld to the outsider without losing sight of the story, introducing important terms and facts (e.g. Great A'Tuin, the world turtle, the names of the four elephants that carry the disc, the Big Bang hypothesis and the eighth colour, octarine) and comparing it to our world (magic versus technical progress, views and opinions, etc.). I believe that you can read and understand the other discworld novels without having read this one first, but if you like the discworld, you need to read this book.


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