Sourcery, Wyrd Sisters and Pyramids - Discworld Reading Challenge

A triple bill as I didn't manage to type up Sourcery before I went on holiday and I finished two more on the ship

 

 

Published: 1988

Plot Summery: Iplsore the Red is a wizard who is about to die, he has broken the guilds rules and married, having eight children, himself an eighth son, his final child - Coin - is a sorcerer. Trouble had been born onto the Disc. In his final act of defiance, Ipslore makes a deal with Death and he transfers his essence into his wizards staff meaning that Death cannot cut Ipslore loose. Years pass and enter in the child Coin to the Unseen University, where he is to make dangerous changes to the magic of wizards and the lives of those on the disc.

The story follows Rincewind, Luggage and Conina, a professional thief and a daughter of Discworld legend Cohen the Barbarian, as they battle against Coin and try to return the Disc to its old self. The book ends with Rincewind being trapped in an alternate dimension and Coin leaving the Disc for a reality of his own making.

 

Adaptations: Terry Pratchett had stated that Sourcery would be the fifth Discworld novel to be adapted for Sky One, although he initially wanted to adapt Making Money. Whether it will be made is now a question which remains unanswered. 
 

Favourite Quotes: There were a few seconds of total silence as everyone waited to see what would happen next. And then Nijel uttered the battle cry that Rincewind would never quite forget to the end of his life. "Erm," he said, "excuse me..."

"It's going to look pretty good, then, isn't it," said War testily, "the One Horseman and Three Pedestrians of the Apocralypse."
 

Reading Time: Started Friday 3rd April 2015 - Finished Tuesday 7th April 2015

 

Published: 1988

Plot Summery: Wyrd Sisters features three witches: Granny Weatherwax; Nanny Ogg, matriarch of a large tribe of Oggs and owner of the most evil cat in the world; and Magrat Garlick, the junior witch, who firmly believes in occult jewelry, covens, and bubbling cauldrons, much to the annoyance of the other two.

King Verence I of Lancre is murdered by his cousin, Duke Felmet, after his ambitious wife persuades him to do so. The King's crown and child are given by an escaping servant to the three witches. The witches hand the child to a troupe of travelling actors, and hide the crown in the props-box. They acknowledge that destiny will eventually take its course and that the child, Tomjon, will grow up to defeat Duke Felmet and take his rightful place as king.

However, the kingdom is angry about the way the new King is mistreating the land and his subjects. The witches realise that it will be at least 15 years until Tomjon is able to return and save the kingdom, but by then irreparable damage will have been done. Granny Weatherwax, with help from the other two witches, manages to cast a spell over the entire kingdom to freeze it in time for 15 years.

The story ends with the truth being revelled in a play and a Fool being crowned king.

 

Adaptations: There has been an animated version and a 4-part BBC Radio 4 dramatisation first aired in 1995 (starring Sheila Hancock as Granny Weatherwax), as well as a play adaptation by Stephen Briggs, who wrote a new adaptation to mark Discworld's 25th Anniversary.
 

Favourite Quotes: The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo.

"Actors," said Granny, witheringly. "As if the world weren't full of enough history without inventing more."

"Yes, bugger all that." said Nanny. "Let's curse somebody."
Reading Time: Started Wednesday 8th April 2015 - Tuesday 14th April 2015

Published: 1989

Plot Summery:
The main character of Pyramids is Teppic, prince of the tiny kingdom of Djelibeybi. Djelibeybi is the Discworld counterpart to Ancient Egypt. Young Teppic has been in training at the Assassins Guild in Ankh-Morpork for several years. The day after passing his final exam he mystically senses that his father has died and that he must return home.

Being the first Djelibeybian king raised outside the kingdom leads to some interesting problems, based on the fact that Dios, the high priest, is a stickler for tradition, and does not, in fact, allow the pharaohs to rule the country. After numerous adventures and misunderstandings, Teppic is forced to escape from the palace, along with a handmaiden named Ptraci. Meanwhile, the massive pyramid being built for Teppic's father warps space-time so much that it "rotates" Djelebeybi out of alignment with the space/time of the rest of the disc by 90 degrees. Teppic and Ptraci travel to Ephebe to consult with the philosophers there as to how to get back inside the Kingdom. Meanwhile, pandemonium takes hold in Djelibeybi, as the kingdom's multifarious gods descend upon the populace, and all of Djelibeybi's dead rulers come back to life.

Eventually, Teppic re-enters the Kingdom and attempts to destroy the Great Pyramid, with the help of all of his newly resurrected ancestors. They are confronted by Dios, who, it turns out, is as old as the kingdom itself, and has advised every pharaoh in the history of the Kingdom. Dios hates change and thinks Djelibeybi should stay the same. Teppic succeeds in destroying the Pyramid, returning Djelibeybi to the real world and sending Dios back through time (where he meets the original founder of the Kingdom, thereby restarting the cycle). Teppic then abdicates, allowing Ptraci (who turns out to be his half-sister) to rule. Ptraci immediately institutes much-needed changes.
 

Adaptations: None known
 

Favourite Quotes: All assassins had a full-length mirror in their rooms, because it would be a terrible insult to anyone to kill them when you were badly dressed.

What our ancestors would really be thinking, if they were alive today, is: "Why is it so dark in here?"

There was not a lot that could be done to make Morpork a worse place. A direct hit by a meteorite, for example, would count as gentrification.


Reading Time: Started Wednesday 15th April 2015 - Friday 17th April 2015