Sourcery, Terry Pratchett

Definitely a disappointment. Sourcery is a significant step backward, especially coming right after Mort. I really enjoyed the first half of this book and didn’t understand why it is so often dismissed, even by Discworld fans. But this really is a lot of buildup that leads to nothing special. The premise of a sourcerer being born in Discworld for the first time in living memory and using his power to dismantle the foundations of wizardry was great, but it went nowhere. This book would have been a lot better if it focused more on Coin, his relationship with his father’s spirit and his staff, and the tonal differences between whimsy of wizardry and aggression of “sourcery.” Likewise, I loved the archchancellor’s hat, Al Khali as a satire of Egyptian mythology/Arabian Nights, and as always The Luggage is an absolute legend. Long may his many feet walk the Discworld and eat potato chips. I also laughed out loud a couple times while reading this book, especially at the footnotes. But I really could not bring myself to care very much about the convoluted mess involving the towers and the “apocralypse” and wacky creatures once again threatening to spill out of the Dungeon Dimension. It felt like a less memorable reskin of the endings of The Light Fantastic and Equal Rites. I’m hopeful I will love one of the Discworld novels starring Rincewind and the wizards, but this just wasn’t it.