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Sourcery by Terry Pratchett

6 reviews

ampharos906's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.75

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bear_ridge_tarot's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 Rincewind, the world's most inept wizard fell of the edge of the Discworld. And yet, he somehow returns, and in the company of the terrifying magical sentient Luggage. In this fantasy of magic and mayhem, he must now help save the Discworld. Again. 

I read the first few Discworld books from Pratchett when I was younger, and returning to the series here was a lovely dip into the chaotic fantasy of magic free-flowing in Discworld. I adore the characters, especially how each has a particular character trait that is so unique to themselves! I will continue through the rest of the series that I haven't read before.

 
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tangleroot_eli's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
I like many things about this book. Conina, Cohen the Barbarian's Barbarian/Hairdresser daughter; the Librarian's undaunted quest to save the library; excellent messaging about parents who try to force a particular destiny on their children.

As I read through the series, though, I'm realizing that the wizards are my least favorite Discworld folk. So a book that switches between Rincewind in all his incompetence and the University in all its smugness is never going to make my Discworld Top 10.

This book also has many bits that remind me that, although Ankh-Morpork isn't in our world, it isn't in our world in a very Londonian way, and that people from there have very Londonian attitudes toward the rest of the world. Unfortunately, in several parts I couldn't tell if that was Pratchett making fun of stereotypical English xenophobia or Pratchett displaying stereotypical English xenophobia. Those were distressing moments.
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tristan_lince's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

It's Terry Pratchett! Of course it's going to be funny and entertaining. But I found this to be my least favorite Discworld book so far. I guess it just seemed like too much of a retread of the first two.
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woweewhoa's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated

4.0

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bluejayreads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Rincewind is back in this one, and at first I was annoyed about that because I wasn’t a huge fan of him in the earlier books. But in this one he’s starting to come into his own as a character. I don’t know if it’s because there was no Twoflower around to amplify his obnoxiousness or because this book gives him room to expand out of being a caricature and into a nuanced character, but I’m actually starting to like him. His cowardice was more humorous than annoying (especially since he’s starting to do things despite it), and his ability to survive things was framed more as a skill or maybe a magical ability than a direct result of his cowardice. 

The cast of secondary characters is great too. There’s a guy who is entirely unsuited for being a barbarian warrior but gosh darn it he’s trying his best, a barbarian warrior’s daughter who really wants to be a hairdresser but can’t seem to overcome her barbarian warrior genetics, a terrifyingly powerful ten-year-old and his staff that may or may not be controlling him, some wizards at the Unseen University, a ruler who has no idea how the real world works but thinks things like poverty sound fun, and more. None of them have quite as much depth as Rincewind got in this book, but they’re all unique, interesting and/or entertaining, and fun to read about. 

I took the back cover copy for this review from The StoryGraph, and I hope the actual back cover is better because that one is kinda … not fantastic. It tells you who’s in the book, but nothing about the story. The story is about a sourcerer, who is unfathomably powerful and doesn’t understand why wizards aren’t ruling the world, marching into Unseen University and deciding to make them rule the world. It’s about Rincewind, whose cowardly instincts realize this is a bad thing, and ends up on another adventure to save the world against his will. And it’s about conflicts between the wizards at the University, torn between following the sourcerer and seizing power and preferring the quiet, academic status quo. And though this book still is a save-the-world plot, it starts to get into deeper ideas (such as the ethics of forcing people into something “better” when they’re perfectly happy with what they have). 

The tone of this one was a little jarring. The content is much darker than previous Discworld books (lots of people die and several people get horribly murdered), and yet the tone is extremely lighthearted, describing a violent magical death and then la-di-da-ing off to another absurd situation or amusing witticism. And it manages to do this so effectively that the deaths didn’t feel real and the horror of just how many people died in tortured painful ways didn’t sink in until long after I finished reading. 

This book also made me laugh out loud at least twice. It was quite the dramatic combination of horrible deaths and hilarious quips. 

I hope that Sourcery marks the point where the Discworld series finds its footing and becomes the epic and well-loved fantasy series it is. I had some struggles with the first few books (excepting Equal Rites because that was the first one I read and I had none of the context I did with the other early books I’ve read), but in this one I’m starting to see the beginnings of everything I love about the later books. I’m quite excited about continuing this series. 
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