Synopsis: All wizards are eighth sons of eighth sons, but when a wizard has eight sons, a sourceror [sic] is born. And with the birth of a sourceror comes the end of the world.
It took me quite a while to get through this book. That's no slight against Mr. Pratchett. There are few writers who compare to him in pure enjoyability. I started reading Pratchett at the suggestion of my friend after I started writing a fantasy comedy.
Usually I read these books with a broad smile throughout the entire process, but rarely do I laugh out loud (again, not a slight). Most people speak of Pratchett's work as hilarious. That, to me, means lots of laughing. So I wonder if I'm really getting the jokes or what. I think the problem for me is that for me to laugh out loud, I need a strong punchline. I'm reserved like that.
That said (feels like a dark confession), I really enjoy these books. I'm actually somewhat torn on the character of Rincewind. I love his cowardice and incompetance, but the fleeing that naturally follows those always make his books seem more episodic than drawn into a tight plot. That's my biggest, and perhaps only, problem with this book and why it took me so long to read it.
I think it went more than a month unopened on my nightstand. I simply stopped one night at a place where the plot didn't require me to keep reading, and it took me quite a while to overcome my inertia.
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3 comments:
I've never read a book that made me laugh out loud more than twice. It's almost impossible to get that reaction when a person is reading quietly to themselves. For instance, I think that Douglas Adams has gotten one laugh out loud out of me, period, in all of the Hitchhiker's books.
So I consider any book that makes me chuckle once in a while and LOL once pretty hilarious. I think that the other people who have told you they are hilarious are judging on this scale as well.
That makes me feel a lot better. It's not that I didn't like the books or think they were humorous. It's that my definition of hilarious is different than that, and I was afraid I was missing something.
What can I say? I'm neurotic. :-)
Sourcery isn't the best organized plot he's written, either. Others are better and funnier.
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