Sourcery

a novel of Discworld

Mass Market Paperback, 288 pages

English language

Published Nov. 14, 2008

ISBN:
978-0-06-102067-4
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Goodreads:
34499

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4 stars (24 reviews)

Sourcery is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the fifth book in his Discworld series, published in 1988. On the Discworld, sourcerers – wizards who are sources of magic, and thus immensely more powerful than normal wizards – were the main cause of the great mage wars that left areas of the disc uninhabitable. As eight is a powerful magical number on Discworld, men born as the eighth son of an eighth son are commonly wizards. Since sourcerers are born the eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son, they are wizards squared. To prevent the creation of sourcerers, therefore, wizards are not allowed to marry or have children. The first few pages of the novel deal with a sourcerer's father who cheats death by making a prophecy that Death must honour; the alternative is to risk destroying the Discworld. The rest of the novel deals …

13 editions

Night spread across the Disk like plum jam, or possibly blackberry preserve. But there would be a morning. There would always be another morning.

5 stars

Solid Pratchett with story loops and all.

Again, exploration of mass delusion and grandeur. A very world-war-two-esque work, really. Solid stuff.

It’s vital to remember who you really are. It’s very important. It isn’t a good idea to rely on other people or things to do it for you, you see. They always get it wrong.

and

Perhaps they would be words that would be remembered, and handed down, and maybe even carved deeply in slabs of granite. Words without too many curly letters in, therefore.

Are very nice quotes that punctuated the storyline. The only thing that prevents me from ranking this at five stars is that I know that later works of Pratchett were so much more powerful and dense.

Review of 'Sourcellerie les annales du disque monde' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Encore une fois, une des annales du disque-monde a eu le douteux privilège de passer sous mes yeux.
Et cette fois, on découvre enfin l'un des grands mystères du Disque-Monde.
Je ne parle pas de ce que pense la grande A'Tuin, ni des raisons qui font que les quatre éléphants qu'elle porte ne l'ont pas encore quitté.
Je ne parle pas non plus de la raison qui pousse les habitants d'Ankh-Morpokh à considérer que leur fleuve coule, alors qu'en fait il se déplace sur un tas de minscules jambes (ah non, ça, c'est le Bagage).
En réalité, le problème qui nous occupe ici est nettement moinns important, il concerne tout simplement le rapport qu'entretiennent les mages et les rapports, justement. On y découvre ainsi pourquoi jamais, au grand jamais, un mage n'aura quelque chose contre une femme. Et franchement, c'est tout à fait savoureux. Les gags sont peut-être moins fréquents …

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