Sourcery

One-Sentence book review
Like other early Discworld books, it's a little rough around the edges, but you can see how Pratchett was beginning to find the identity of the series as a whole.

Summary, thoughts and notesThe book is part of the Rincewind sub-series in Discworld, specifically dealing with the eight son of a wizard, who in this case is not a wizard, but a sorcerer. The plot circles around our sorcerer, a kid named Coin, being manipulated by his father, who transferred his consciousness to his son's staff, into infiltrating Unseen University, taking it over, and creating an army of wizards to do as he says and effectively rule all of Discworld. Coin himself doesn't really want any of that, but his dad is the stubborn kind, Rincewind has his own kind of side adventure as much of this is going on, and eventually sync his adventure with Coin's in the book's final act, ending with a happy ending for most, excepting those who die, of course.It's hard for me to give an opinion on this book. Most people say that the first two books in the Discworld series (The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic), aren't a great place to start because they don't represent Discworld as a whole, and both the story, writing, jokes, and basically everything gets better as you go further along. I personally have found this book to be the weakest I've read so far, and I'm reading them in chronological order as the books were released, so I've read the first two books most people say to shy away from at first and honestly I liked them better.That's not to say I didn't like this book, it's just the one I've enjoyed the least, if that makes any sense. I thought the pacing was weird, it felt like there were long stretches where nothing happened, then a bunch of action and some pretty good jokes then back to a sort of lull in the story.Like always, Death absolutely steals the show every time he appears, with just the most incredible quotes, such as:“I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?" Death thought about it. CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE.”and“And what would humans be without love?" RARE, said Death.”The book itself satirizes a bunch of fantasy tropes we all know and love, epic scale plots, magical wars, men = natural barbarians and women = natural homebodies, among other things. I think the way Pratchett manages to put so much of himself and his ideologies in the books without it feeling too in your face is an incredible skill that even to this day, not many authors can replicate.All in all, I'd say this book was good, if just average. The pacing was weird, and the plot itself I wasn't too invested in, but that's been the case with the other Rincewind-centered books I've read so far, so maybe Rincewind just isn't for me. Regardless, it did have some high points that I think make it worth it for me to revisit this book sometime in the future, maybe when I'm finally done reading all of the series.If you want to read a good old fantasy satire with some witty humor, or, alternatively, if you want a story about how wizards think they're the toughest people in the block until a smaller bully comes along, I think you'll like this book.