Equal Rites by: Terry Pratchett

Equal Rites is about million in one chances, eighth sons of eighth sons, men, women, witches, wizards, and numbers.  Terry Pratchett’s third Discworld novel takes on a new main character in the form of Esk Smith, meant to be an eighth son of an eighth son and ergo a wizard, but she comes out a daughter.  She still becomes a wizard of course, but not without lack of trying as Drum Billet passes on his powers before the cosmic mix up can be found and our dear old Death takes him away before they can be taken back, and now we have Esk destined to become a wizard even if the world around her tells her that women cannot be wizards.  Witches surely but never wizards.  Ironic that this is a girl power narrative often confused to be written by a woman implying that men cannot write satisfactory girl power narratives.

The simple girl power narrative in the book is the weakest aspect, mainly because after the first few mentions and the first few times Esk overcomes someone saying she cannot do something because she’s a girl, it becomes rather boring as the book comes to the same flaws as The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic.  The plot is paper thin and really there so Pratchett can move from one scenario to another scenario.  At least we do not have a third book of this happening to Rincewind and Twoflower, as they’re characters are developed enough as a third book would have the narrative become stale.  Pratchett decides to introduce an entirely new set of characters to facilitate a new story.  Eskarina Smith is the novel’s plucky young protagonist, who is written perfectly as a child.  Esk never feels like one of those too perfect to believe perfect children, nor one of those too evil to believe troubled children.  She has her moments of naiveite, not understanding how the world works and her wizard’s staff facilitating this worldview through its weird actions.

The bulk of the book is taken up by Esk and Granny Weatherwax journeying to the great city of Ankh-Morpork to enroll Esk in the Unseen University.  They get in all sorts of troubles on their travels including bar fights, fortune telling, and defending the Unseen University from the Things from the Dungeon Dimension in the book’s rather rushed climax.  Granny Weatherwax is a character who will reappear in later books, but here she is just a supporting player in Esk’s story.  Granny is a witch who specializes in herbs and headology, basically telling people what they would like to hear causing their own futures to line up.  She can of course do magic and you would regret crossing her, but why bother when her methods work wonders.  Weatherwax is a kind soul deep down, but she puts on a stern air as she teaches Esk witchcraft and begrudgingly takes her to the Unseen University.  She has no real time for wizards and their so called pure magic and steals the scene whenever she’s present.

The final important major character is Simon, a wizard in training with a stuttering problem.  Simon is quite a poor character as he immediately falls for Esk who is only happy to help him speak.  He’s got extremely powerful magic powers, but is obsessed with working through complex mathematics which are magic in their own right, and sitting back while abuse is hurled at him constantly.  It is through poor Simon that the Things nearly enter our world, but he eventually gets better.  There are plenty minor characters in the novel with highlights being the librarian of the Unseen University (an orangutan) and Archchancellor Cutangle who has no chance of getting together with Granny Weatherwax, but sadly the book does not do enough with the abundance of characters to leave the deepest of impressions.  5/10.