"Where to?"
Rincewind sighed. He'd tried to make his basic philosophy clear time and again, and people never got the message.
"Don't you worry about to," he said. "In my experience that always takes care of itself. The important word is away."
The ninth book of Discworld! The title varies between
It’s a very short book that continues Rincewind’s arc after Sourcery, where we left our hapless wizard back in the dungeon dimensions. Not a place anyone wants to be, but especially a wizard, even one as useless as Rincewind. He’s somewhat in luck here as he is returned to the Disc, although it’s inside a summoning circle. It turns out that Eric, a young demonologist, was summoning a demon for his three wishes, and he got Rincewind instead.
The book also goes into more detail about demons. Discworld demons and the things from the dungeon dimensions are not the same thing. This has been indicated in other books as well, but we don’t see demons all that often before this book. Demons are more along the lines of what we think traditional demons are and the beings from the dungeon dimensions are more along the lines of Cthulhu mythos monstrosities, although not as all-powerful as Cthulhu’s ilk. Astfgl, their new king, is also keen on organization and making hell more punishing than it was in some interesting and terrifying (yet humorous) ways and is frustrated at the other demon’s resistance to him trying to change how things have worked for millennia. It feels something like if Office Space collided with Dante's Inferno.
What follows is a wild romp as Rincewind and Eric travel through time and space, where Eric’s wishes kind of come true, but not in the way he wanted, although not as bad as something like The Monkey’s Paw, which only makes sense as this is Pratchett and not Jacobs. Instead of horror we get humor. We meet some historic characters, alter the path of some civilizations, change the very nature of the Disc’s Hell on the way, and even instigate the creation of life on the Disc. It lacks an overarching plot beyond Eric wanting wishes and also lacks the social commentary Sir Terry was famous for. This is very likely from initially being an illustrated book that is much shorter than the other books generally are.
Herrena, the henna haired harridan from The Light Fantastic, makes a cameo here. She’s with two other heroines (Red Scharron and Diome, Witch of the Night) at the Mended Drum for girl talk and canasta when their drinks are transformed via magic and are then summarily and grudgingly replaced by the barman.
The Discworld fandom, like any fandom, is not a monolith, and which book is the 'worst' (although worst Discworld book is relative since they are all a joy to read) is open to debate. But this one is among the least loved of the books, and I’d have to agree with that assessment. Sir Terry had mostly moved on from Rincewind by this point, although he will pop up here and again in later books, and you can feel that he was eager to both push past the failed wizard while also resolving his predicament at the end of Sourcery.
This novel does show how he's improved as a writer from the original books, but it has a similar feel to the earlier volumes, being more of a parody instead of satire. It's another throwback that feels a bit out of place since it comes directly after the amazing Guards! Guards!. It’s not a bad book to be sure, but due to its length and the situations it presents, it feels rushed, especially at the end. It does what it sets out to do, though; bring Rincewind back in an amusing manner. Due to both its position in the story arcs and what it represents, I definitely do not recommend this as your first foray into the Discworld books, but I do encourage that those that dive into the wonders of Discworld to read it at least once.
2.75 make-work demons out of 4.
Some fun quotes:
No enemies had ever taken Ankh-Morpork. Well technically they had, quite often; the city welcomed free-spending barbarian invaders, but somehow the puzzled raiders found, after a few days, that they didn't own their own horses anymore, and within a couple of months they were just another minority group with its own graffiti and food shops.
Hell, it has been suggested, is other people. This has always come as a bit of a surprise to working demons, who had always thought that Hell was sticking sharp things into people and pushing them into lakes of blood and so on.
The prayers of most religions generally praise and thank the gods involved, either out of general piety or in the hope that he or she will take the hint and start acting responsibly.
Morella is a Gen Xer who likes strange things a bit too much.
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