Book Review: Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett (Discworld)

Equal Rites it's an interesting sort of book.

It's a Pratchett's novel and full onboard with the other three I've read before (three to be honest - we are honest aren't we? I Suppose we are).

In this novel we follow Granny and her apprentice Esk. She is now a wizard sorry witch something.

It was a bit different from previous books I've read in terms of character so there's that.
Death still appears although only two or three pages at most.
It was interesting to see the Granny perspective on magic. Esk trying to understand psychology headology. The focus on the wizards, the focus on somewhat cthulhu thingy.

Overall it was interesting read.

Review: Terry Pratchett - Discworld Graphic Novels

I bought this book a while ago and after reading the first two novels in Discworld I read it so I could see whata Pratchett made me imagine. There are some things kind of strange... for what I learn there isn't set an age for Rincewind. In the cover of the novel he is depicted old but on the graphic novel he is young.that was odd. The graphic novel isn't that bad but it left out some interesting things mainly on the second part where the last battle is not the even the same. Either way it's a good book with funny moments that are presented also on the books. Quite good. I would advice it to anyone who have read the novels. To anyone else I would start on the novels.

Review: The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett

Title The Light Fantastic (2st on Discworld)
Author Terry Pratchett
Pages 285
Year 1986
Publisher Corgi
Reading time 5 days (January 2010)
Rating 7.5 / 10

Review

This book follows the first book on discworld and it's the only one that has a direct sequel. All other books have the same characters but they can read independently. The first was The Colour of Magic (here).

In these tale we follow the (mis)adventures of Rincewind the Mage, Twoflower the first Tourist and it's faithful companion The Luggage. As the story progress we get to see Cohen the Barbarian which will later appear in other stories, Bethan a virgin to-be-sacrificed, Death with a minor role, Ysabell, his daughter and a couple of other characters like Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan and the main antagonist Trymon the archmage.

In this novel we learn more about the Discworld, it's origins and goings, the Unseen Academy and other fantastic beings. There is some references to some fairytales that were done superbly.

The plot it's simple. A red star is going straight foward for Discworld and nobody knows what to do. The Mages think that the solution is the magic book Octavo and Rincewind with the help of the lost spell on this mind guides him. The all plot is quite good. In my opinion this sequel is greater than the first. 7.5/10



Review: The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett

Title The Colour of Magic (1st on Discworld)
Author Terry Pratchett
Pages 285
Year 1983
Publisher Corgi
Reading time 5 days (January 2010)
Rating 7 / 10

After reading Mort and enjoying the book I wanted to read more from the Discworld so I start where I shouldn't had start or else I might give up reading them. In this book we follow the adventures of Rincewind the Wizard and his new found friend Twoflower, the first tourist and his weird luggage with a hundred feet. Well as I said before I didn't start with this one and thank Perkunos. Why? Well let me tell you something... In 2004 I bought several Terry Pratchett books. Mort, Carpet People, Colour of Magic and a couple others. Well as Carpet People was the first book he released I started there. Well I didn't enjoyed the book so I waited 5 years to try again. This time I started on Mort and I enjoyed so I thought maybe there are good books and bad books... Let start again. And so I did. I started from the beginning. Well I didn't enjoyed that much. It was good don't get me wrong but maybe I would wait a year or so to read another... Now I know he can make good books and bad books so I have to keep reading and find those gems... Well now for the book.

This book is the collection of four short stories tied-in together.

The story begins in Ankh-Morpok and until then it was doing nicely but afterwards I just lost interest but I continue reading because I don't want to end up with un-finished books and because I really want to like Pratchett. I think his ideas are good and his satyrical/humurous/parody way is somewhat funny. I just hope he improves with the passing of the books. Mort was better in this way. Maybe because of Death.

About the characters... Õne thing I thought was that the writing style overshadow them as we wanted to get to learn more of them... But saying that the Luggage was the most interesting of them all and that's saying much. Rincewind is a failed wizard with a craven nature. He only knows one spell that he saw in a book and after memorizing every other spell doesn't want to be in his head. He meets the first tourist who is an insurance salesman (that unfortunally tries to teach the branch to his fellow new friends but just makes them burn half the city). Rincewind becomes an un-hero sort of a guy throughout the book and dull and anoying... Well and Twoflower... It's just there. He i a blissfully ignorant, cheery rube, blundering on protected from harm by his own inability to understand the danger he's in. One thing that make me thing is... In the beginning only Rincewind spoke is language but by the end he could speak with several other without problems.

I really hope that in the later novels he focus more... I read somewhere he should be Douglas Adams of Fantasy. I really hope he can make it because in this book I wouldn't have said that... Let us see...

In the end I must say this book is dull. Don't start on this book if you want to get into Discworld. Try Mort (it's the only other one I know) but it's a good book with Death as the Main character.

Review: Mort – Terry Pratchett

Book Mort
Author Terry Pratchett
Pages 272
Year 1987
Publisher Corgi
Reading time 26 days (I was reading several books at the same time.)
Rating 8.5 / 10

Mort is an unpromising, gangling teenager who becomes as apprentice toDeath, but proves less than gifted at his new task of ushering souls out of the world. In fact, when it comes to the rather attractive Princess Keli (due to be assassinated) Mort fluffs it completely. He kills the assassin instead, thus interfering with the implacable workings of Fate. But reality isn’t changed so easily; history as it should have been begins to take shape around Keli’s city-state of Sto Lat. Can Mort save Keli before she is squeezed out of existence?

Death, having delegated much of his work to Mort, is displaying disturbingly human characteristics: drinking, dice-playing and becoming curious about the nature of fun. Mort, meanwhile, is becoming much less cheery and showing a worrying tendency to

SPEAK IN HOLLOW CAPITALS…

Everyone knows Terry Pratchett. Before of this book I’ve only read a book by him. It was Good Omens written by him and Neil Gaiman. I started several years ago another book but I didn’t enjoyed and didn’t finish.. Carpet People. Several years and several hundreds book later I tried again. I was… suprised. Before reading this book I watch Hogfather on my PC and it featured DEATH so I gave it a tried. In the beginning was hard to get into the world because of the nosenses but after reading several pages I was enjoying his writing style and all the comic and references to our universe. The plot itselfs it’s simple (or isn’t?). DEATH wants to train someone to cover for him. He want’s to learn what makes humans human. In the beginning we see him training young Mort and it resembles the first movies of Karate Kid. There are two other residents (well three if you count the horse); Albert the buttler and DEATH’s daughter (not real one) Ysabell. After teaching him the arts he entrusts Mort with several responsabilities while he take humans small pleasentries like drinking, fishing, dancing, gambling etc… Mort starts doing DEATH job and one of them doesn’t go as plan and he saves accidently a princess. But the problem is that reality doesn’t know that and so everyone (with the exception of mages) think that she is dead or simply ignore it.

The pace of the book is fast and the plot advances nicely. There are several secondary plots like Albert part on all, DEATH’s expriences, the princess way of coping of being (un)alive and several others… We get several (to be expected) cultural references and jokes that I enjoyed. The characters are funny and their talk is typic british. Next book I will read by Pratchett will be the first… Colour of Magic