I’ll admit to starting this late, hoping no one would notice. I like Rincewind, but this is my least favorite of all the books. The first two are rough around the edges, but after Mort there is no excuse for Pterry to revert to this.
I admit that Conina is a somewhat fun character that could be developed further in another book, but the rest of the cast…
The luggage features a lot, which is probably the best that can be said. The whole magic war thing is stupid, Coin is not a very interesting character.
I wonder if JK Rowling got her idea for the talking hat from this book though.
Where Rincewind blasts a hole in the side of the Snake Pit and looks at his finger as if it’s hardly ever done that before.
Aside from that, the book was not Pratchett’s best.
BTW, sorry to bug you about the post. I was wanting to get on to the better books, but I figured we would need to get the unpleasantries out of the way.
I’ve been reading along with the books and threads. But there just isn’t that much to say about Sourcery except, isn’t it amazing how much Pratchett’s writing has improved since he wrote this book?
Yeah, this one is definitely a step backward for Terry. I just hated that the Sourcerer was called Coin. No logical reason behind my hatred – I just wish Terry had called him anything else. And the bit about his father being in the staff was silly.
That’s the thing - the hext one is Wyrd Sisters which is much better( a bit flawed for sure, but magnitudes better than Sourcery) which is followed by Pyramids, which I feel is a trial run for Small Gods. The thing is, Mort was before, so he should have just left the lampooning of fantasy alone, instead of this most unfortunate relapse.
I prefer to see this as Highlander II.
And I promise to be on time with a new OP for Monday.
Coin isn’t that interesting a character, but then, he’s also not really the main character…Rincewind is. I disagree with you about the magic war being stupid. This book is really the only book where you see magic on any sort of large scale being used, and the book shows why magic isn’t used more in the Discworld…because it’s so destructive.
You know, I’ve tried to have things to say about the books, but for Sourcery… I’m coming up blank. It’s bland, generic, uninteresting and absolutely flat. The most it gets is an occasional chuckle but they’re sparse and the humor doesn’t work.
Can we go on to Wyrd Sisters. I like comparing Pratchett to Shakespeare…
My problem with the magic as it is used in Sourcery is it is completely inconsistant with how it is portrayed before and since. That contributes in part to the lack of a Discworld feel to Sourcery.
In Equal Rites, for example, the boy whose name I can’t remember is considdered a Sourcerer; given the nature of them in Sourcerer I would think it would be obvious who was and wasn’t. The know enough to recognize a Sourcerer but not enough to realize that there are some downsides to having one around? The wizards are goofy but that’s a stretch. And every seventh son of a seventh son has to be a wizard, and no one quits and has kids? If people wanted Sourcery then it would be easy enough to force it to occur.
Sourcery is the last of the original style Discworld books and the weakest of all of them. Fortunately Pratchett learned to evolve.
I have nothing to say about the book itself. I just dropped in to say that I have always pronounced the title SOUR-cery (like a lemon), and thought it was some vague reference to the way sorcery goes sour when it goes wrong. It didn’t dawn on me until I was re-reading it for this thread that it was SOURCE-ry, as in coming from the source of things, and a pun on sorcery.
What can I say. I’m a bit slow on the uptake, at times.
I’ll be the lone voice of dissent and say that I enjoyed Sourcery. It was a nice showcase for Rincewind, gave us some fun peripheral characters (Colina’s irresistible barbarian hero roots really tickled my fancy), and overall was an enjoyable read for the time investment required. And Coin, despite his limited time as himself, came across as a somewhat tragic and sympathetic character IMO.
Granted, it doesn’t have any “deep” messages as in some of Terry’s other works, but I don’t think they all have to have 'em. I can’t really see why people are dissing it so.
I’ll back up rjung, and say I also do not dislike it. Admittedly, it’s not as good as others, but I wouldn’t call it outright bad. I don’t think I’ve read a Discworld book I didn’t like.
I’ve only read the first 7 (up through Pyramids) so far, but I liked “Sourcery”.
Okay, I’ll agree with the folks saying that Coin was a dumb name for the kid, but still. I don’t get the Rincewind hate. I like him. I especially liked a lot of the exchanges between him and Conina.
No, there was no deep meaning, but I thought it was still fun. I enjoyed this one more than the previous Rincewind outings. I do think that the whole “Dungeon Dimensions” creatures thing is getting overused by this time. But it was better than “Equal Rites”, and just as fun as “Light Fantastic” for me.
And there were some good Rincewind lines in this one…
Sorcery always seemed like a contractual obligation book. You know, the one the author had to produce because he had a contract for so many books every 5 years. It was such a rehash of other storylines used so much better in earlier or later books.
Dying wizard handing over staff of power: Seen it in “Equal Rites”.
Things break through from Dungeon Dimensions and are stopped at the last minute: seen it in umpteen other books.
Unlikely heroes save the day: see above.
Luggage proves to be indestructible and kills a lot of people: see above.
Pointless trendy cultural touchstones inserted into the story (Yuppie genie,
It seemed uninspired and laboured almost the whole way through.
The high point for me is that we get to see Rincewind as something other than a one-trick pony. In all the other books, both before and after, Rincewind comes across as not just cowardly but ultimately lazy, with no desire to do anything with his life, with people or anything else. And he never gains anything form his experiences, the Rincewind character never grows. That Rincewind is a hard character to identify with. He isn’t just a reluctant hero, he’s a reluctant human being.
In Sourcery we see Rincewind as I think the character should be treated. He’s a genuine reluctant hero. He doesn’t want to carry the hat, or defeat the Sourcerer or anything else, he just wants to be left alone. Nonetheless he does do all those things, sometimes because he’s threatened but in many cases because his conscience comes into play. That is a far more likable and believable Rincewind then his other treatments, and his refusal to attack the Sourceer because of his age, not because he is afraid, is the best example of that. To me this is the best part of Sourcery, seeing Rincewind as a genuine everyman, behaving as we might behave rather than as the heroic characters of the witches or the watch might behave.
Unfortunately Rincewind returns in Eric and is just a two-dimensional coward again.
That’s what I say. Rincewind had a lot of potential, but Pterry shot himself in the foot on this one so many times the character has been irrevocably ruined for me. Rincewind may not be a hero, but he shouldn’t endlessly be running from everything. In nothing else, you’d have thought he’d have realized that he was the luckiest guy on the disk and use it.
Well, the less said about Eric the better, in my opinion.
I do quite enjoy Sourcery - it seems to be a transition book. It’s not quite as much of a vehicle for one liners as the first 2 books, but it’s also not as polished as the later ones. It is indeed odd that we’ve had Mort by this point - it’s much closer to the later books in terms of writing.
It was an OK book. I wouldn’t read it again, and it was “meh”, but it wasn’t horrible.
I may not be in the next couple of threads as I loathe the Witches series. I did read Wyrd Sisters, so I’ll probably comment on that one, but I haven’t rwad any of the other ones.
I wasn’t advocating Rincewind trying something he’d have to be lucky for, only that he’d accept that things might work out, or even that he’d turn around and try something. Rincewind’s finest moment was when…
[spoiler]He threw a sock with a half-brick in it[/.spoiler]
I think the first sentence sums up why you don’t get why Rincewind is so disliked. You haven’t really hit the good stuff yet. When I read the Discworld series originally those early books were okay fantasy parodies; light fluff but not really better than most and by the time Sourcery rolled in it was getting really worn. All of that turns around in the next four or five books you’ll read, though. The Discworld series stops being Rincewind’s wacky adventures in a skewed fantasy world and becomes something much better (you’ve already gotten a little taste of it, but the real meat is yet to come).
I like Eric better than Sourcery but I think we can save the discussion of the unusual history and construction of that book for when it comes around. I will say that Eric at least had some ideas that I found interesting even if Pratchett explored them better in other works.