Equal Rites

The third book in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is a huge leap forward in terms of quality. Equal Rites is basically a precursor to the Tiffany Aching books that Pratchett wrote more recently. It focuses on young Eskarina Smith, an eight-year-old girl (based on Pratchett's daughter) on a journey to become a wizard.

Around this time, Pratchett had noticed an interesting trend in fantasy literature: men get to be wizards while women have to be witches. Wizards get cool, flashy magic. They get to save the world and be important. Witches are old and ugly and evil and usually get burned at the stake. So we get a book that tries to fight that dichotomy, while at the same time elevating witch magic and arguing that maybe wizard magic isn't all it's cracked up to be.

There are some great puns in this book, side with side with some truly cutting commentary about the differences between the sexes. The plot is far more cohesive than in any of the previous two books, though it does take some weird zigs and zags towards the end of the book. And the characters are just fantastic. Eskarina is stubborn and argumentative and has some powerful magic on her side. Granny is equally stubborn, but with the benefit of experience that she uses to either manipulate or force everyone around her to do things her way. Together they are a force to be reckoned with.

It would be nice if this theme were ever brought back. This book is a lot of fun, but in the rest of the series, magic remains very much divided by gender. Granny returns to her small village and remains a witch. The wizards continue to refuse to let any women matriculate at their university. And Eskarina seems to fall off the Discworld until she finally reappears in one of Tiffany Aching's stories. The status quo gets challenged a lot in this book, but it never actually changes. Which always leaves me feeling a little disappointed, and like this book isn't really a part of the rest of the series.

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