The Blog Fantastic 017: The Colour of Magic review

It was the King Colour, of which all the lesser colours are merely partial and wishy-washy reflections. It was octarine, the colour of magic. It was alive and glowing and vibrant and it was the undisputed pigment of the imagination, because wherever it appeared it was a sign that mere matter was a servant of the powers of the magical mind. It was enchanted itself.

But Rincewind always thought it looked a sort of greenish-purple.

Running the risk of sounding like a snobbish expert of all things Discworld, I have to admit that upon rereading The Colour of Magic for the third time, it stands out far more than it used to compared to the rest of the novels (that’s right, all five novels of the series I’ve read so far). It’s structured differently. It’s composed of four novellas or extended chapters (I guess you could also call them parts or sections). Most of the novels in the series aren’t organized in parts or chapters which means that the story isn’t organized that way either. The Colour of Magic reads more like short story collection in which each all the stories flow from one to the other as opposed to a novel which encapsulates one continued story for its entire length.

I was a bit surprised to realize that Pratchett’s influences were more obvious to me than they’ve ever been before. Part of it is that the first two times I read this was during my teens. The other part is that I recently finished reading Swords Against Death byThe Colour of Magic isn’t one continuous story per se, it’s more of a collection of never-serialized stories. Four distinct stories that follow from one to the other which, when read in sequential order, work rather well as a novel. The fact that all four parts focus on a particular story or a long joke (made up, of course, of several smaller and medium size jokes) serves to make me believe I didn’t imagine the influence from Fritz Leiber. I think it’s interesting that Pratchett, the writer being influenced, is better than Leiber, the one influencing Pratchett. It’s not really a fair comment to make because Pratchett has far many more influences than just Leiber and unlike Leiber he’s not afraid to actually put his world building to good use, by which I mean Pratchett doesn’t just throw fancy word combinations onto the page. Octarine means something and some does hubward and so does the designation of “the disc” mean the world.

Fritz Leiber who’s was a big influence for the first and second stories in this collection thought he wasn’t the only influence, that’s for sure. For starters, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (Bravd and the Brown Weasel) appear as characters in the book in the first few pages. The wonderful city of Anhk-Morpork is clearly based on Lankhmar. Heck, it’s right there in the name! The way the book is organized also shows signs of the influence from Leiber.

It’s a bit obvious to say but being the first book in the series, The Colour of Magic is responsible for introducing several staple elements of the series. To name just a few, the planet itself is introduced: it’s flat, held up by four elephants riding on the back of Great A’Tuin, the space turtle. Discworld, the planet, is a very unique location in fantasy and it works very well. It’s one of my favourite fantasy locations of all time (and it would make a great statuette to have in ones living room). Pratchett also introduces the magical importance of the number eight along with the eighth colour of the light spectrum, octarine (which the title references). Anhk-Morpork, Rincewind, Twoflower and the Luggage are also introduced. I love all of these characters, the Luggage especially. They’re all so familiar (maybe not the Luggage) but maintain a specific, how would you say, flavour or essence all their own. Pratchett instantly makes these characters both unique and relatable in a matter of pages. It’s made all the more surprising when you stop and consider how ridiculous these ideas are. Let’s take my favourite (LUGGAGE), made up of a rare tree called sapient pearwood, it has hundreds of tiny legs, has quite the attitude, and is seemingly impervious to all sorts of natural and magical injury.

World-building is actually the one thing that makes this book work. It’s not just fantasy hijinks and magic jokes. For the uninitiated, The Colour of Magic tells four stories involving three mains characters. Rincewind is a washout wizard who’s hired as a tour guide to Twoflower, and ­in-sewer-ants clerk who is on holiday. Twoflower is the first tourist ever on Discworld and it works really well as an introduction because some of the sights he sees and the places he visits are explained to him by Rincewind which, by extension, is also explained to the reader. Accompanied by Twoflower’s Luggage, a sentient wooden chest with an attitude and many endearing qualities (he, it’s, no I’m pretty sure it’s he, is one of my favourite Discworld characters) they go on several fun adventures. In the first story, they meet up, many introductions are made, and half of Anhk-Morpork is burned to the ground. In the second story they meet up with a caricature of a barbarian hero are unintentional captured by an ancient god and defeat it. In the third story the characters get into a bit of a misunderstanding with the Dragonriders of Pern and the whole book ends with Rincewind and Twoflower getting into all sorts of trouble on the Edge which inevitably leads them to travel beyond the Edge of the Disc.

I quite like the idea that everything Pratchett throws into his fictional world seems to work so well together. Discworld isn’t your typical pseudo-medieval setting with magic thrown in, though there certainly is quite a bit of that. There are also modern ideas that come into play in hilarious ways. Pratchett introduces a lot of these elements in the first book making Discworld a series, a location and a universe in which things are ever changing. The overall constants remain the same, but immediately in the first story the concepts of tourism, insurance and economics are introduced. We also learn that as a failed wizard, Rincewind’s always toyed with the idea that there exists something else other than magic. He’s thinking of science but he obviously wouldn’t know that since he’s never encountered science before. He gets to, though, as Twoflower has a few contraptions form his home continent that would quality as a cross between magic and science. He has objects like a pocket watch and a camera, both going by different names, which Rincewind gets to use throughout the novel. The reader is made to understand that all these things were completely unknown to the population of Ankh-Morpork before the arrival of Twoflower.

The Colour of Magic isn’t the typical Discworld novel, at least not if I compare the five books I’ve read from the series. It’s got a bit of a strange structure and it’s nowhere close to the funniest book in the series, it’s hands down the best place to start reading. Perhaps unsurprisingly it serves as an excellent introduction to a couple of the most well-known Discworld characters as well as some of the most popular locations, like the twin city of Ankh-Morpork. More importantly, The Colour of Magic is the first time that terminology unique to the series such as octarine, the Discworld compass: Hubwards (towards the Hub or the center of the Disc), Rimwards (towards the Rim), Turnwise (the direction in which the Disc turns) and Widdershins (the opposite of Turnwise). In order to truly enjoy all that Discworld has to offer, you also have to be a pretty well-read fantasy reader. The more fantasy novels you’ve read prior to reading one of the many Discworld novels, the better the reading experience will be. That’s something I’ve only realized the third time reading it which means you don’t need to have read hundreds or even dozens of fantasy novels before it to enjoy the great fun that Pratchett’s having at everyone else’s expense.

Note on the Cover:

Josh Kirby’s cover to The Colour of Magic is pretty interesting. It’s not my favourite Discworld cover by any means but I do like how he was able to capture the energy of the book inside. This cover is also notable for putting the best character in the center (Luggage!) but the rest of the characters are a bit lost in the mix. Twoflower happens to have four eyes because Kirby catch on that Pratchett’s description of him was meant to convey that Twoflower wears glasses. It’s ok, I didn’t catch on the first tie either. I like how the cover shows a scene from the book. I love it when artists do that but good covers don’t always have to represent something from the story to be good.

The Blog Fantastic 003: Equal Rites review

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

Cover art by Josh Kirby

Published by Corgi Books

Men are wizards and women are witches and that's that. Only things are not that simple for Eskarina Smith. On the night she was born, Esk received the staff of a powerful wizard. The wizard, feeling death approaching fast, want to give his staff to the eight son of an eight son. The only problem is that he ended up giving it to the eight daughter of an eight son. Having inherited his staff, Esk has also inherited the wizard’s powers. There’s a problem though, as a woman she can’t be a wizard. She’s a fluke of nature (well, magic) and she can’t be taught in the ways of wizard magic by the usual ways which is to attend the Unseen University. She just can’t. They wouldn’t accept her. Thus begins the third Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett.

Lucky for Esk, her village's witch, Granny Weatherwax, decides to try and teach her the way of witches fearing that her uncontrolled powers will hurt her or those around her. It's not an easy task, mostly because Esk catches on so quickly.

The world of Discworld is populated by all sorts of creatures found in the fantasy genre. Obviously witches and wizards but also dwarves and goblins and anything else you can think of. Pratchett also creates a few species and characters and cultures of his own, such as the Zoons. The Zoons are merchants and traders who travel the rivers of Discworld on barges. They're unable to lie, for the most part which makes their job rather difficult. Young Zoons who are discovered to have the capacity for lying are specially trained to become a sort of diplomat for the other Zoons. This special person is called a Liar and is in charge of trading with other merchants. That's just one of the many creations Pratchett has written to populate the world of his fantasy series.

Equal Rites doesn't have as strong a parody element as the first two novels The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. Instead of parodying specific fantasy stories or characters (such as The Dragonriders of Pern and Conan the Barbarian in previous novels), Pratchett makes fun of more general elements of fantasy fiction as well as a few aspects of our society. For example, Granny tries to get a flying broom fixed by Dwarves who act like car mechanics in the way they go about it. Complaining about her broom being an earlier model and the difficulty of ordering that kind of wood, etc.; it makes for a funny scene. He doesn't completely refrain from parodies of well-known books and authors. Equal Rites has a good time poking fun of H. P. Lovecraft and Cthulhu.

I love this cover. It's a very different style from what you normally see on
fantasy covers nowadays but artist Josh Kirby is a pro. His style is
instantly recognizable perfectly suits the style of Discworld. 

Magic in Equal Rites:

As always with a Discworld book, one of the enjoyable aspects of Equal Rites is the humour. What makes Equal Rites stand out from the rest (keep in mind I’ve only read the first three Discworld novels) is the spectacular use of magic by Terry Pratchett. Magic isn't always regarded well in Discworld. It's a necessary job and people such as merchants need a wizard or two to protect their caravans while crossing dangerous territories but it’s regarded as a necessary evil. You wouldn't associate with a witch or a wizard if you didn't have to.

The magic of witches is particularly fun. It's as much about knowledge, secret and otherwise, and the art if fooling others into helping themselves. The magic of witches is also in tune with motherly instincts and other loosely defined female intuitions. Their magic is the magic of living things, of thinking things. Their understanding of how humans work will help them heal the sick. Their understanding as well as their love and compassion for all things living help them use nature to their advantage and to the benefit of others. 

In comparison, the magic of Wizards is brash, bombastic and destructive. It's about pinning down spells in large books to be used later, it's about the stars and the heavens above, and it’s about sparkling sparks and flaming fireballs. It's violent and uncompassionate. Wizards use their staffs to distil magic out of the old and powerful things of Discworld. The magic is then transferred to the wizard and he can then wield the raw, powerful magic using spells and incantations. Wizard magic is closely associated with worlds and symbols. Regular words are shadows or representations of everyday things. Magic words are different. They're more than just a shadow. Some magic words are so powerful they struggle to escape the paper and books they're inscribed on and become real. Ok Discworld, magic has a mind of its own and can be rather uncontrollable. 

In Equal Rites Pratchett takes the time to clarifies elements of wizard magic that appeared in the first two books. Wizards’ magic, and Discworld magic, are about the power of the written word. Spells written down in books have strong magical properties all to their own. They can bend time and space around them and cause a great deal of chaos in their immediate surroundings. As you can imagine this makes the library at the Unseen University a dangerous place to be. It’s also worthy of note that the rules the wizards mention throughout the book to support their stance against allowing women to practice wizardry are of an oral tradition. There is nothing written down anywhere as far as I could tell. This allows for some changes to be made hence Eskarina’s eventual admittance to the University. There isn’t a whole lot of information regarding the power of the written world in Equal Rites than the proper introduction of the concept but I assume that Pratchett continued to develop this in other Discworld novels. I can’t forget to point out that making the written word powerful and important in his fictional world, Pratchett is also making a nice meta commentary that I’m sure all readers enjoy.

Equal Rites is at its best when dealing with the main theme of the book, that of equality of the sexes and demonstrating that even in a fictional world women are as capable as men. Pratchett offers several conversations between characters offering different points of view on the feasibility of a woman becoming a wizard. It's quite clear that it’s considered a ridiculous notion on Discworld. I'm sure many if not all I the readers where thinking "Why not? What’s the big deal?" while reading the book but it remains an important and difficult question in our society today. What seems ridiculous in this funny little book is controversial in our own world. Even in the 21st century there are strong and seemingly unavoidable social pressures dictating certain jobs as being specifically reserved for men or women. A male hairdresser is a barber or a homosexual. A straight male hairdresser is not only an unusual sight but also something that is frowned upon by many. The same can be said for a female construction worker. Pratchett demonstrates his great skill at writing by making such a complete issue seem so straightforward yet during the entire book he also pokes fun at it and makes it all look ludicrous. Why are equal rights an important issue in all parts of the world despite all our other achievements and advancements? Then again, Equal Rites and all the other Discworld novels are just fantasy novels with jokes and not grand literature to be discussed in a serious way. My apologies.

The only reason you would want to read this book is if you like stories about witches whose broom's lifting spells are so old and weak she needs to run with her broom at shoulder height to give it a jump start. Either that or you enjoy well-crafted stories that expertly parody several elements of fantasy literature and the real world seamlessly into a surprisingly hilarious and worthwhile book. It’s all down to your personal tastes I guess.