(See the main Pratchett story table here.)

MY RATING:

BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A Sourceror is loose on the Discworld and its up to Rincewind and friends to stop him and reassert Magic's place in the (Disc)world.

PROS: Interesting characters, strong plot, typical Pratchett humor.
CONS: The antagonist could have been fleshed out more, story seems to wander towards the end.
BOTTOM LINE: Another fine entry in the Discworld series.

MY REVIEW:
When the eight son of an eight son (all wizards) has an eight son, that last son is known as a Sourceror. Able to wield magic at will, Coin (the third eight son), with the 'help' of his dead father's spirit in his staff, installs himself as the Arch Chancellor of Unseen University and instigates a war against Magic to replace it with Sourcery. Unfortunately for the Discworld, the only opposition to Coin comes in the form of Rincewind, the inept wizzard, Conina, thief and daughter of Cohen, Nijel, the barbarian whose learned Barbarianship from a book ghostwritten by Cohen, and, of course, the Luggage.

Sourcery, unlike earlier books, is built upon a singular plot, with all the events happening to support the plot; it's not just a series of jokes tied together to make a story. This allows Pratchett to develop some really interesting characters and to turn Rincewind into a, bumbling, hero. All the major characters presented here are interesting, with the exception of Coin, and even the lesser characters are funny. These would include the Librarian, who takes great pains to protect the magical books from the book-burning Sourceror, Death, who is always funny, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocralypse (the apocraphyl apocalypse) who miss the apocalypse by getting drunk at a bar. Throughout the story, Rincewind and friends meet the characters amid interesting and funny settings, and Pratchett never lets a good joke or pun (or footnote!) pass. These are typical Pratchett touches, usually consisting of word-play and outrageous similes that show Pratchett's skewed perspective on things.

There are a few missteps here. First, the main antagonists, the father spirit/sourceror son duo, aren't really all the fleshed out , Coin especially. He's really there just a vessel for his father's will. Pratchett could have added some more emotional impact by exploiting this situation, but didn't. Second, while the story is a cohesive whole, it does seem to wander a bit toward the end. It's as if the story began to run out of steam before Pratchett was ready to end it. After the climax, Rincewind's condition is left up in the air, to be resolved in later books.

Still, Sourcery is a fine Discworld novel, and shows that Pratchett was getting his story telling legs in gear.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Tuesday February 06, 2007 at 2:20 PM
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