Sourcellerie - linguistic.earth

French language

Published July 19, 1995

ISBN:: 978-2-84172-000-2

(2 reviews)

Sourcery is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the fifth book in his Discworld series, published in 1988. On the Discworld, sourcerers – wizards who are sources of magic, and thus immensely more powerful than normal wizards – were the main cause of the great mage wars that left areas of the disc uninhabitable. As eight is a powerful magical number on Discworld, men born as the eighth son of an eighth son are commonly wizards. Since sourcerers are born the eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son, they are wizards squared. To prevent the creation of sourcerers, therefore, wizards are not allowed to marry or have children. The first few pages of the novel deal with a sourcerer's father who cheats death by making a prophecy that Death must honour; the alternative is to risk destroying the Discworld. The rest of the novel deals …

Sourcery is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the fifth book in his Discworld series, published in 1988. On the Discworld, sourcerers – wizards who are sources of magic, and thus immensely more powerful than normal wizards – were the main cause of the great mage wars that left areas of the disc uninhabitable. As eight is a powerful magical number on Discworld, men born as the eighth son of an eighth son are commonly wizards. Since sourcerers are born the eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son, they are wizards squared. To prevent the creation of sourcerers, therefore, wizards are not allowed to marry or have children. The first few pages of the novel deal with a sourcerer's father who cheats death by making a prophecy that Death must honour; the alternative is to risk destroying the Discworld. The rest of the novel deals with the sourcerer's plan to have wizards rule the Discworld, and the efforts of a small group – including Rincewind the Wizard, Nijel the Destroyer and Conina the Hairdresser, daughter of Cohen the Barbarian – to thwart those plans. There are many references to geasa in the text, which are idiosyncratic curses, vows or obligations placed upon a person (usually a hero, such as Cúchulainn in Irish mythology).

14 editions

jonn reviewed Sourcery by Terry Pratchett

Night spread across the Disk like plum jam, or possibly blackberry preserve. But there would be a morning. There would always be another morning.

5 stars

Solid Pratchett with story loops and all.

Again, exploration of mass delusion and grandeur. A very world-war-two-esque work, really. Solid stuff.

It’s vital to remember who you really are. It’s very important. It isn’t a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong.

and

Perhaps they would be words that would be remembered, and handed down, and maybe even carved deeply in slabs of granite. Words without too many curly letters in, therefore.

Are very nice quotes that punctuated the storyline. The only thing that prevents me from ranking this at five stars is that I know that later works of Pratchett were so much more powerful and dense.

David Hughes reviewed Sourcery by Terry Pratchett

Average

3 stars

A very long time ago I was given the loan of five Terry Pratchett books by an acquaintance (now running a lab at the University of Manchester where they investigate protein synthesis). I made the mistake of reading three, one after the other and was unable to read another Pratchett for over 30 years. He was a great writer and a decent human being by all accounts, but I just find him far too whimsical (when I hear the likes of "Cohen the barbarian" I reach for my sick bag). Sourcery's fine: if you like this sort of book, this is the sort of book you'll like. Otherwise, meh and I'll be able to read the next one in a year's time maybe.