Drum Billet, a wizard who is about to die, goes to the small town of Bad Ass (yes, really) to pass his magical staff on to the about-to-be-born 8th son of an 8th son. Only just after he does so, it’s revealed that this 8th son is actually a girl. And the problem is that on Discworld all witches are female and all wizards are male. There’s never been a female wizard – until now.
Named Eskarina, as she grows up she is trained in witchcraft by Granny Weatherwax, who insists that Esk can’t be a wizard because girls aren’t wizards. However it becomes clear that her magic is going to become out of control, so they make the journey to Ankh-Morpork to try to get Esk into Unseen University, the school for wizards.
It’s an entertaining story, but what I really want to talk about are the Zoons. They were in such a small part of the book but so interesting to learn about it. I wish we could have spent more time with them. They are essentially unable to lie, which tends to negatively affect them in trading, so when a Zoon child shows any signs of being able to lie, they are trained to become Liars for the tribe. And the Zoon people tell their trading partners this, which upsets the trading partners, who think they should try to use words like “pubic relations officer” instead of coming right out and calling themselves Liars. It was a lot of fun to read about.
Now that I’ve read a few Discworld books and Good Omens, I have decided that I like Terry Pratchett’s books enough to read them periodically, but he’s not likely to ever be a go-to author for me. For some reason I really wanted to like his books, maybe because I’d heard so much about them and people love the Discworld books so much, and I’m ok with this outcome. I maintain that he was a clever and funny writer. His books just don’t quite grab me the way others do.
cbr15bingo Dwelling (Unseen University)