In the first part of\u00c2\u00a0Eric<\/i>, a familiar face escapes from the Dungeon Dimensions and, unsurprisingly, immediately finds themselves in trouble. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Discworld<\/i>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll indulge\u00c2\u00a0me, I wanted to open this by talking about a more meta subject: what reading\u00c2\u00a0Discworld<\/i> is like. This is now my ninth\u00c2\u00a0Discworld<\/i> book, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not even a quarter of the way through this series. Even calling it a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153series\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a complicated act, since it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re moving through the Discworld in chronological order. In the case of Rincewind? Sure, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got a very serialized arc, and this gives us the next step in that. But the other books don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily follow one another in any real sense. They still build this world, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d even feel comfortable with saying that they help readers to understand\u00c2\u00a0other<\/i> books that don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even contain the same characters.<\/p>\n
Which is just\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 kind of cool to me? If the Discworld is a giant puzzle, then a new piece falls into place when I finish a book. Of course, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how many pieces there are. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know the general shape of the puzzle itself. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know if the end result is<\/i> a mosaic I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be able to understand. That chaos is attractive to me as a reader because it holds such potential. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a promise inherent in that, one that tells me that if I just give these books some time, the world they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re set in will continue to grow.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an investment in that sense.<\/p>\n
With\u00c2\u00a0Guards! Guards!<\/i>, that investment proved worthy because I got to see Pratchett grow. I got to see another side of him as a writer that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d not seen before. And I got\u00c2\u00a0swamp dragons<\/i>, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m happy to report that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m now the owner of\u00c2\u00a0two<\/i> little stuffed dragons that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m canonically accepting as swamp dragons because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my choice. Thank you to the two folks who gave them to me on tour; Kitten and Armstrong are both very pleased with their new home.)\u00c2\u00a0Guards! Guards<\/i> did not feel like Pratchett was retreading common ground with that book.<\/p>\n
So I wanted to open this review this way because my experience with these books informs how I am going to react to\u00c2\u00a0Eric<\/i>. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m given three very familiar characters within the first ten pages of the book, and I admit that this was a great way to win me over fairly quickly. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no secret how I feel about the Librarian and Death. Plus,\u00c2\u00a0Eric<\/i> feels like a direct sequel to\u00c2\u00a0Sourcery<\/i>, which feels a little silly to state because this book liberally references it, even going to far as to use the title as a resource in a footnote. Which means RINCEWIND IS BACK! WHICH IS GREAT!<\/p>\n
But is bringing him back\u00c2\u00a0enough<\/i>? Surely, that can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sustain an entire novel. Neither can a couple scenes with Death, nor a wonderful moment with the Librarian. Why should I care about this book? Whose story is being told? Initially, all we get is a mystery. Who (or what) is running throughout Ankh-Morpork, causing reality to twist around it in increasingly absurd ways? Death knows, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not revealed to the reader; the Librarian is mostly shocked; the wizards at Unseen University are eager to shift blame away from themselves, so much so that they complete a Rite of AshkEnte.<\/p>\n
The return of Rincewind to the Discworld is momentous, but, again, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not what the book is\u00c2\u00a0about<\/i>. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say the same thing of the new Archchancellor and the Bursar, though I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m curious if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be part of some sort of subplot I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t picked up on yet. No, as made abundantly clear by the title of this book, this is all about Eric. Eric Thursley, teenage demonologist and all-around annoyance, who successfully summoned a demon using magic AND GOT RINCEWIND INSTEAD. This\u00c2\u00a0alone<\/i> is one of the funniest jokes in the\u00c2\u00a0Discworld\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>series because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I must say that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a first-class materialization. No one would think you were a fiend, to look at you. Most demons, when they want to look human, materialize in the shape of nobles, kings and princes. This moth-eaten wizard look is very clever. You could\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve almost fooled me. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a shame you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do any of those things.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In life, Rincewind was one of the worst wizards ever, and now, in this odd \u00e2\u20ac\u0153second\u00e2\u20ac\u009d life (or continuation of the first, however you put it), he is\u00c2\u00a0the worst demon ever<\/i>. Yes, granted, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not actually a demon, but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make the joke less funny. Plus, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s saddled with the worst imaginable demonologist: a fourteen-year-old boy who thinks that Ricnewind will just grant him three wishes, which include the most beautiful woman in the world, every kingdom ever on the Disc, and eternal life.<\/p>\n In short? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exactly what a socially awkward, entitled, and bitter fourteen-year-old boy would want.<\/p>\n My hope, then, is that Pratchett continues to criticize Eric through the text. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not something he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s done a whole lot with Eric\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s type of character in the past, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written multiple times about the way in which women appear in relation to men in the\u00c2\u00a0Discworld<\/i>. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s subverting that here; to Eric, women are some unobtainable\u00c2\u00a0other<\/i>, a mysterious force that he believes he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s owed and can seize by force of magic. But there is a brief moment where Pratchett slams Eric, if briefly, by having Rincewind silently condemn the boy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desperation. Well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d also count the brilliant way in which the mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interjection deflates any sort of power Eric might have, but I admit that I also want more of this. Eric is not all that uncommon in our own world for a reason: because few people ever tell us guys not to do this sort of thing. (Well, or few of us ever\u00c2\u00a0listen<\/i> to people telling us this.)<\/p>\n Soooo\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 how long until Eric realizes he summoned someone who is definitely\u00c2\u00a0not<\/i> a demon? I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll happen in the next section.<\/p>\n The original text contains use of the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mad.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1gYouaaFm2w<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – The Mark Does Stuff Tour 2015 is now live and includes dates across the U.S., Canada, Europe, the U.K., and Ireland. Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a> In the first part of\u00c2\u00a0Eric, a familiar face escapes from the Dungeon Dimensions and, unsurprisingly, immediately finds themselves in trouble. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read\u00c2\u00a0Discworld.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[489,463,248],"class_list":["post-3280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-eric","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches will be the remainder of\u00c2\u00a0The Legend of Korra<\/i>, series 8 of\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>, and Kings<\/i>. On Mark Reads, Diane Duane’s Young Wizards<\/i> series will replace the Emelan books.
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