When an eighth son of an eight son is born in the discworld he becomes, naturally a wizard. This is where it usually ends because wizards are not allowed to, erm, you know. However, one wizrd had seven sons and then an eighth is born. A wizard squared. A soucerer. And this soucery - a source of magic - intends to bring forth the "Apocralpse" and the end of the discworld forever.

Set in the Unseen University, we see Rincewind the wizard again as the main charcater in this book (along with a feisty female and an emaciated warrior..and of course the infamous Luggage) trying to save the discworld is his own bumbling, try-to-avoid-actually-doing-anything type way.

Very funny and enjoyable read.

The Discworld, being a flat world that is carried through space on the backs of four elephants, who in turn are standing - rather patiently, I think - on the back of a great turtle, is, understandably, a world awash in magic. There are magical creatures on the Disc - trolls and dwarfs and elves - and people who know how to use the magic that infuses the world. People like wizards.

If you want to be a wizard, there are ways to get there. The best thing you can do is to be the eighth son of an eighth son - that type is almost certainly destined for the more arcane arts. Once you've become a wizard, you dedicate yourself to one thing: magic. And late lunches, comfortable robes and your pointy hat, but mainly to magic. Wizards don't marry. Wizards certainly don't have children.

Except for one wizard. Ipsalore the Red, the eighth son of an eighth son, broke this law of wizardry. He fell in love, ran away from the University, and had sons of his own. Eight of them. His youngest son, Coin, was the carrier of a great power. He was the eighth son of the eighth son of an eighth son. Wizardry squared.

A Sourcerer.

Back in the old days, when the magic on the disc was much wilder, there were sourcerers everywhere. They built great castles and fought horrible wars of magic, the effects of which still scar the Disc to this day. Modern wizardry is a pale reflection of those days, and for good reason. If wizards continued to battle as the sourcerers did, the disc would be broken beyond recognition. Every wizard knows this.

And yet, when young Coin comes to the Unseen University of Ankh-Morpork, bristling with power and holding a staff possessed by the ghost of his father, the wizards are more interested in the power he can give them than the responsibility they have. A sourcerer has arisen, and a new age of magic has come, with all of the terror that implies. Coin reminds them of what wizards used to be, and the power they used to have. Through him, old men who could barely manage a simple illusion are now able to re-shape the world with their wills. With a sourcerer behind them, there is nothing these wizards cannot accomplish.

Only one man can stop them. His name is Rincewind, and he really, really doesn't want to get involved.

Rincewind is a wizard (or, if you go by his pointy hat, a "Wizzard"), although he is so deficient in magical talent that it is believed that the average magical ability of the human population will actually goup once he dies. He wants nothing more than to be left alone to live a boring, mundane life. The universe, it seems, has different ideas. Together with Conina - the daughter of Cohen the Barbarian - and Nijel the Destroyer, Rincewind has to figure out how to stop a sourcerer from destroying the world.

This book is one of the early volumes of the Discworld series, and so it doesn't quite have the depth that later books do. Oh, there's certainly a message to be found in it - mainly on the subject of identity. Rincewind identifies himself as a wizard, despite having all the magical talent of a lump of silly putty, and cannot conceive of being anything else. The sourcerer Coin, on the other hand, has been told who he is to become, mainly by the spirit of his dead (and rather monomaniacal) father. Conina has the blood of heroes in her veins, but her dream is to wield nothing sharper than a pair of beautician's scissors. And Nijel the Destroyer - who looks almost exactly the way his name sounds - desperately wants to be a barbarian hero, despite being about as muscular as a wet noodle.

Despite all of this, however, the characters succeed when they decide for themselves who they want to be. The ones who suffer the most are the other wizards - the ones who allow Coin to tell them who they are. They invest their entire sense of self in the inflated image fed to them by the sourcerer - an image of power and strength - and when it all comes crashing down around them, they are only left with shame and disappointment. In the end, the remain who they always were, and that is the tragedy of their downfall.

So if there's a lesson to be had in this book, that's it: know who you are and be it, as hard and as loud as you can. Other than that, it's a rollicking little adventure. Enjoy.

Terry Pratchett has created Discworld series that are so enticing you cannot put the book down! There are laughs every page where he is making fun of us too!

Although it was published separately, I finally got to read Sourcery
(the spelling made it a bit hard to find this book on the web) in the collected
volume from the Science Fiction Bookclub, Rincewind The Wizard. The
anthology also contains the first Discworld novel, The Color of Magic,
followed by The Light Fantastic and finishes with Eric. In
comparing Sourcery with the first two novels, it is clear that Pratchett
had at this point moved from just a clever joke to using it as a series for
pointed criticism. It turns out that wizards are forbidden to marry in the
Discworld since if they do there is a chance that their eighth son of an eighth
son might be a person of incredible magical power, a sorcerer. That is what
occurs here, but worst of all, the father of the boy sorcerer escapes Death's
scythe by endowing the boy's staff with his essence. He then begins to use the
boy, whose name is Coin, as a tool for his own revenge. And Death can't get at
the twisted spirit without killing the boy--and Death tries very hard to follow
the rules in Terry Pratchett's world. Magic wars begin and suddenly the
Discworld is being filled with wizard towers from which massively destructive
bolts of magic are being spewed. One can only think of nuclear silos in our own
world. I think though what really strikes me about this novel is that in here I
begin to see characters, who are a favorite of Pratchett, characters who--in
spite of themselves--are deep down good. This is one reason why I am so pleased
that my son Andy loves Terry Pratchett. Rincewind is a proud coward who is
constantly described as a being probably a descendent of some bit of rodent
since he is exceptionally good at scuttling away from danger. Yet when in this
novel it really comes to the push, there is a stubborn part of him that will not
allow evil to have the final laugh. I see similar qualities in Granny Weatherwax--who
sees herself as too close to being a wicked witch for comfort and Captain Vimes--who
is deeply concerned with his own violent qualities as a policeman. Yet all these
characters in the end stand up and stand straight for what is right. Thus,
Pratchett's vision while wonderfully cynical and funny is in the end actually
optimistic. Only an optimist of the highest type would cast Death himself as a
hero--see Hogfather for evidence."

"Sourcery" is the fifth novel in Terry Pratchett's hugely popular Discworld series, was first published in 1988 and is the third to give a starring role to Rincewind, the cowardly one-spell wizard.

Wizardry is widely seen as the most appropriate profession for the eighth son of an eighth son - however, given that it's also a celibate profession, is isn't a job that is intended to run in the family. Unfortunately, accidents do occasionally happen and the eighth son of a wizard is known as a Soucerer - a wizard who is also a source of magic. They are hugely dangerous, and will increase the background levels of magic to such a degree that other wizards may just start building towers and launch another round of the Mage Wars...

Ipslore the Red is one of the exceptions : he fled the halls of the Unseen University, married and had a family. The inevitable eighth son, Coin, is only a baby when Death arrives for Ipslore and the ex-wizard decides to choose his son's destiny. The future he picks for Coin includes wearing the Archchancellor's Hat of the Unseen University and, in an attempt to cheat Death, Ipslore enters his staff when he leaves his body. His intention is to guide Coin to his destiny....

Coin is roughly ten years old when he makes it to the University, and isn't long in taking over. When he deals with two of the Wizards - including the incoming Archchancellor - in a swift and very final manner, the remaining members of staff are understandably reluctant to stand against him. However, two of the survivors - a rather devious pair called Spelter and Carding - smell an opportunity. In seeing themselves as Coin's most senior and trusted advisors, they don't realise that Ipslore already has that role to himself.

Coin's arrival isn't universally welcomed - the rats and the gargoyles are amongst the first to flee, while the books in the University's library are distinctly unsettled. Rincewind, now acting as the University's honourary assistant librarian, is the first member of staff to realise there's something strange happening and nips off to the pub in a panic with the Librarian (an orang-utan), and his Luggage. (Luggage is a large brass-bound box, made from sapient pearwood - the same material wizard's staff is traditionally made from. It can move around by itself, has rather a vicious temper and - like Dr Who's Tardis - appears to be much bigger on the inside than on the outside). While Rincewind has been lucky enough to avoid Coin at the University, he's unfortunate enough to be apprehended by Conina at the Mended Drum. Conina, a very successful thief, is the daughter of Cohen the Barbarian and has pilfered the Archchancellor's Hat from the University. In this case, however, she stole the hat at its own request. (It is a magic hat after all...and it has realised that Coin's arrival will signal the Apocralypse). Under the Hat's instructions, Rincewind and Conina travel to Klatch, where the Hat believes there is a mind devious enough to wear it...and stand against the Sourcerer.

As usual from Pratchett, this is an easily read, rather silly and very enjoyable book.