Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

A wizard, Drum Billet, is dying, and wants to pass his staff on to another wizard. The 8th son of an 8th son is being born to a nearby blacksmith’s wife, and as 8th sons of 8th sons are always wizards (I take it 8 is Discworld’s 7?) he chooses that boy. Except that the son is actually a daughter, Esk. Apparently, male and female magic is different, and so all male magicusers are wizards, and female magic users are witches. Whoops. The local witch, Granny Weatherwax, does her best to properly train Esk as a witch, but Esk has too much magic that’s too different, so Granny decides that she has to be trained by the wizards.

The book started fairly slow for me, but picked up once Granny Weatherwax and Esk hit the road. I’m particularly fond of Esk’s attempts to strike out on her own. (She seems to do this a lot.) Granny Weatherwax is fun, especially with her belief in headology, and her interactions with wizards are fun, but something about the book didn’t quite click for me. It seems to present itself as a “battle of the sexes” book, but most of the battle seems to be stubbornness, and for some reason, it never quite properly clicked for me. I think, though, that this is very early Pratchett.

I’m not sure Pratchett’s sense of humor quite matches mine (or maybe it’s the nonstop aspect of it) but I do find him funny in a slightly-distanced way, and I like his characters. I still wish, though, that he had chapter breaks. Logically, I realize that scene, setting, and perspective shifts are clear and easy to follow, but my brain still associates chapter breaks with organization, and I’m one of those people who wants to know how far it is to the next break, no matter how into something I am.

The Abducted Nun Strikes Again

Everyone remember the Abducted Nun book?  If not, I have kindly included the tag.  In the mood for a medieval romance (they're becoming more and more sparse, it seems) and realizing that it had been a while since the last entry into the realm of Awesomely Bad Books (which are not to be confused with Horrifically Bad Books...Awesomely Bad Books tend to have a hint that, at some point, they may have had the potential to be good, and their badness can be entertaining), I grabbed another Samantha James book that I got at the same booksale, and learned that it is a sequel!

I do not recall character names from Abducted Nun (or rather, didn't until I was reminded in detail here), but I think the hero, Egan, is the jerk best friend of the hero from the first book.  I seem to recall being convinced he was Sekritly In Love With (For Years!) the hero at the time.  The heroine, Glenda, is the woman who prematurely went into labor and lost her son when he husband's head was delivered to the castle.  We are reminded of this at least once every five or so pages.  I'm a little past page 100.

Sadly, this one was mostly Dull and Bad instead of Awesomely Bad until the Dastardly Villain appeared a couple chapters ago.  At which point, Egan stopped being an improvement over Cameron and told Glenda that he was a good and generous man because he didn't rape her when he spied on her bathing, bossing her around, and throwing hissy fits if she so much as talked to another man without his permission (as said man is Dastardly Villain, he is naturally totally justified in doing so) and I have now entered the "WTH SERIOUSLY?" mindframe I read Abducted Nun in.

And the writing?

A bit of randomly selected prose from page 5, when James is reminding of of the Epic and Touching Love of Cameron and Meredith:

Their eyes met and meshed, both Cameron's and Meredith's.  And in that moment spanned by aught but a breath, Glenda watched as something passed between them-an enormous pride, a bond that only two who shared the creation of a child could share.

Dialogue from the same page:

"Ah, but I should have known.  So tiny in size, yet still she mocks me, this daughter of mine.  For she sleeps the sleep of the undisturbed, the sleep which forsakes her father night after night."

Can you imagine the unintentional humor to be found in 370 pages of this?  (Err...it reads fast when I'm not stopping to figure out what James is saying.)