This book is Weird and fantastic this is about wizards and witches battle out to become a female wizard!

"Equal Rites" is the first in The Witches Collection from the Discworld Novels, and so where we first meet the brilliant if rather callous Granny Weatherwax. If there's a job to be done, Granny Weatherwax will blooming well ensure it's done right! In this case, she finds herself responsible for the wellbeing of Young Esk, who is determined to become a great Wizard, no matter if all the Wizards are usually men...

I came to the discworld series through my brother who recommended it after reading the first four books. When I read the colour of magic book 5 had just been released. I loved the books when I read them. Over the coming years I read each book and enjoyed them but unfortunately I started to waver with pratchett's writing. The books at first and for some time after, were very good stories and very funny. But I started to find that they became either a brilliant story but not funny or extremely funny with a weak plot. So after book 25, the truth I stopped reading pratchett. I do have very fond memories of the books though. None were terrible, most were brilliant I just fell out with them. The discworld series is packed with invention and humour. Characters leap off the page from rincewind, to the guards of Ankh-morpork, the witches to death, who is my absolute favourite character. The rating will give my feelings for each book. I still recommend pratchett to others despite my stopping reading him. The books are good and one day I may consider returning to them, time and money permitting.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels are both brilliantly funny and very clever. His characters are well observed and the world jumps off the page at you. Equal Rites is one of my favourites, featuring the fearsome Granny Weatherwax the witch and her young charge Esk who isn't going to let being a girl stop her from becoming a wizard... If you haven't read any Discworld novels before, this is as good a place as any to begin.

When wizard Drum Billet is about to die, he finds a newborn to follow his steps. Yet, there is a slight mistake, it is not the eighth son of an eighth son, but a girl. The midwife and witch Granny Weatherwax knows immediately what this will mean, Eskarina would become the first female wizard. Except for the fact that there is no such thing as a female wizard. Years go by but ultimately, her family cannot ignore her fate. So quite naturally, she will have to be trained, and therefore Esk and Granny make their way to the Unseen University. “If you were a boy I'd say are you going to seek your fortune?" "Can't girls seek their fortune?" "I think they're supposed to seek a boy with a fortune.” Terry Pratchett’s Discworld has lost nothing of its appeal after all these years. “Equal Rites” was first published in 1987 and is the third novel in the series. The title is a wordplay on equal rights of course, the main topic of the novel and - quite distressingly - not much has changed since then. Old institutions which still refuse women on the basis of the fact that they have never been allowed there, are still a reality. With impressive irony, the author puts the finger in the wound and yet, the effects seem to be weak. “It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done. A person ignorant of the possibility of failure can be a half-brick in the path of the bicycle of history.” Esk is a wonderfully stubborn girl who finds her way into a male world. She possesses a natural force and cannot easily be stopped. Luckily, Granny is by her side to guide her and to make up for some foolish steps. She, too, is a great and lovable character. Even though she somehow accepts that women are witches and men wizards, she does not take male magic too seriously, she knows about the fuss they make with words and their weakness. She is a great representative of those women who have seen through the male facade and know how to work their way around big egos. “I saved a man's life once," said Granny. "Special medicine, twice a day. Boiled water with a bit of berry juice in it. Told him I'd bought it from the dwarves. That's the biggest part of doct'rin, really. Most people’ll get over most things if they put their minds to it, you just have to give them an interest.” It is most of all the little details that Pratchett has paid so much attention to that make the series an outstanding read. The puns are wonderful and the brilliant irony with which he caricatures the real world made me laugh out loud more than once. Reading it from a feminist point of view, the novel is as current as it might ever be.