Hi all,

I was wondering if it was just me or if Equal Rites not as good as the rest of the books so far?

So far, I've only read 5 Discworld books (the first 4 and Thud!). Does the Witches group of books from Discworld improve?

-ken

Yes it improves tenfold. The characters haven't properly formed in Equal Rites. Trust Me.

Thanks Stercus Wyrd Sisters is the next book in the Witches series that I'm going to read (after Sourcery, as I'm reading the books in order of being published)

-Ken

Wyrd Sisters is a cracker. Equal Rites is easily my least favourite book - the last time I tried reading it I gave up before I was halfway through. The other Witches books are great.

ER is one of my least favourites of the entire series. The books get better the further you go, but I think the Witches see the greatest leap in quality. So yeah, you've got through ER, the best is yet to come! I think my favourites witches book is still Carpe Jugulum.

Thanks for the heads up, I was starting to think about just by-passing the witch series

-Ken

Nah, it's not just you. I hadn't read it before, it's probably the only book I hadn't read, purely out of accident, but I'm reading it now and it's so weird to see "Granny" not being like Granny at all, she's a completely different character, and I'm glad she changed !

I'm glad you are going to continue. Equal Rites didn't really do Granny Weatherwax justice. The Witches just keep getting better.

But having said that, I have to add in all fairness that it was a good way to instill the Witch vs Wizard attitudes to Magic.

Wyrd Sisters is just fantastic.

Witches abroad is my favourite witches book personally, I think Nanny Ogg is fantastic in it...

The witches books are my favourites followed by the City Watch books.

I read Carpe Jugulum before Equal rites so I did everything the wrong way round but I found ER interesting in that Granny is not the developed character she is in CJ.

I once asked Terry, at one of the Question and Answer spots at a Clarecraft event if Eskerina would ever be seen again, as an adult wizard/witch. He said he didn't like to move so far ahead because it meant old characters would have to die. Granny Weatherwax was already supposed to be in her 70s when Esk was a child. He said there would be an outcry if she died.

But in Wyrd Sisters time is accelerated by the witches except for in Lancre where they hold it still so maybe he could write a plot like that again. Besides anything is possible with magic isn't it?

I dispute this - it was early in character development, but the later Granny is there in the earlier writing - just in an unusual situation - but still with the iron-hard determination and her own solutions to problems. What I want to see is Esk coming back - if anyone is going to replace Granny she would be better than that wimpess Tiffany - but I would rather see Granny keep on to a ripe old age.

There are elements of the Granny-to-be in ER, but her actual personality is quite different, there's no sarcasm, none of the toughness and her know-it-all-even-if-I-doesn't side hardly appears. I agree that the character was being developed, but she doesn't "evolve" like the others, it was as if suddenly she was the same person but completely different, a bit like if we had seen nothing of Carrot or Vimes between their first appearance and Thud...

I agree with Katcal, Granny changed radically between Equal Rites and Wyrd Sisters. Part of it was due to the introduction of Nanny Ogg and Magrat, which changed the central theme, but really... It's just not the same character. Granny went from a flat character to an complex one in a single book.