Rating: 
Summary: A delight from beginning to end
Review: I was surprised to discover that this book, the third in Pratchett's famous fantasy-parody series "Discworld", has received such mixed reviews. I have been introduced to Pratchett 10 years ago when I casually picked up "The Colour of Magic" (it had an interesting cover). I found it, however, rather disappointing; it was somewhat dull and humorless, with a convoluted plot and unmemorable characters (Rincewind remains to this date the one Discworld character that I utterly loath). But, I thought, there WAS something there, in the style of the author... so I picked up "Equal Rites". Imagine my delight when I discovered it to be a tight-paced, funny book, with memorable characters and an interesting plot. The plot is good: the eight son of an eight son is always a wizard, but in this case, Esk is born a girl, Discworld's first female wizard. Complications follow as the characters around her first seek to deny, then resolve this situation. Granny Weatherwax, Lancre's most famous witch, is introduced for the first time, and she remains one of my favorite characters. Esk, which some title as 'boring', is actually very cute and nicely-written: Pratchett is one of the few authors I know who doesn't use children for a cloying sort of cuteness or sentimentalism, and instead he writes her as her own person, with a distinctive and believable character. In consequence, she is much more endearing than many children characters. Her crush on Simon is, additionally, rather cute. Last but not least is the Staff, one of Pratchett's takes on Tolkien's Ring in creating an object with its own mind and presence; and it works; the Staff's protection of Esk is interesting, and its silent but determined conflict with Granny is hilarious. Except for the ending, which is a little vague, the book is consistently funny and interesting, and holds well on subsequent re-reading, which is more than I could say for "The Light Fantastic", the second book in the series, which is good on first reading but rather dull afterwards. All in all, this is the first great Discworld books, one of my favorites in the series, and I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Pratchett's best. Good for feminists.
Review: I am still learning to write reviews, so I'm sorry if you don't like this one. Here it is. Now Esk is the eighth daughter of an eighth son. Because she's the 8th of the 8th, she should become a wizard (and supposedly a good one), but the most important part of the of the wizard's lore is, no female wizards. Not only this, but her granny wants to train her to be a witch. When granny sees Esk just can't become a witch, they take a long journey, to Ankh-Morpork, (where the Unseen (magical) University is located), to get wizard's training. The book EQUAL RITES is the third in the Discworld series. It's a good one, but I don't think it's one of the best, not very funny (but still funny), and not that interesting. Even so, if you want to read any of the other Discworld books, I recommend reading them in order, start with the first, and don't skip any of them - this way you get all the jokes in the following books. So, buy Equal Rites, you won't be sorry.
Rating:
Summary: Still a bit early
Review: Equal Rites is, again, a step forward for the series. While Esk isn't as dynamic as one might hope, and Granny Weatherwax is only on her way to her "true self," Equal Rites is by no means a bad book.
Rating:
Summary: A delight from beginning to end
Review: I was surprised to discover that this book, the third in Pratchett's famous fantasy-parody series "Discworld", has received such mixed reviews. I have been introduced to Pratchett 10 years ago when I casually picked up "The Colour of Magic" (it had an interesting cover). I found it, however, rather disappointing; it was somewhat dull and humorless, with a convoluted plot and unmemorable characters (Rincewind remains to this date the one Discworld character that I utterly loath). But, I thought, there WAS something there, in the style of the author... so I picked up "Equal Rites". Imagine my delight when I discovered it to be a tight-paced, funny book, with memorable characters and an interesting plot. The plot is good: the eight son of an eight son is always a wizard, but in this case, Esk is born a girl, Discworld's first female wizard. Complications follow as the characters around her first seek to deny, then resolve this situation. Granny Weatherwax, Lancre's most famous witch, is introduced for the first time, and she remains one of my favorite characters. Esk, which some title as 'boring', is actually very cute and nicely-written: Pratchett is one of the few authors I know who doesn't use children for a cloying sort of cuteness or sentimentalism, and instead he writes her as her own person, with a distinctive and believable character. In consequence, she is much more endearing than many children characters. Her crush on Simon is, additionally, rather cute. Last but not least is the Staff, one of Pratchett's takes on Tolkien's Ring in creating an object with its own mind and presence; and it works; the Staff's protection of Esk is interesting, and its silent but determined conflict with Granny is hilarious. Except for the ending, which is a little vague, the book is consistently funny and interesting, and holds well on subsequent re-reading, which is more than I could say for "The Light Fantastic", the second book in the series, which is good on first reading but rather dull afterwards. All in all, this is the first great Discworld books, one of my favorites in the series, and I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Very Different Than the First Two, but Satisfying
Review: Maybe it's just me, but I missed Rincewind and Twoflower as I read this, hoping they would pop up and find themselves nearly blown to bits or narrowly escape getting eaten by something. Although Granny Weatherwax is a funny character in her own right, and Esk's inability to control herself is sometimes interesting, I just miss the bungling misadventures that came before. That said, this is still a great book, and any fan of Discworld would do well to read it. It seems at this point that Pratchett was still filling in the gaps and trying to decide on characters and setting, as well as just what exactly the otherworldly beings of magic actually are and can do. This book answers some fundamental questions about why the disc is like it is, and thus moves forward the whole mythology underlying the strange things that happen in the individual books. Further, the parallels with the modern world do continue in fine style, this time centering on the young girl wishing to become a wizard - a males only profession. One wonders if the young lady entering the Citadel had to endure the presence of a librarian-turned-primate in order to further her study. Regardless, it's fun and interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than Sourceror, but not the best of Discworld
Review: This an early, shorter Discworld novel (number 3), but it is notably better than Sourcery (number 5), which has a similar plot. As a baby, young Eskarina, the 8th "son" of an 8th son, is given a staff and power by a dying wizard who discovers, too late, that she is actually a daughter. Granny Weatherwax takes the girl under her wing as an apprentice witch, but it eventually becomes clear that young Eskarina must learn wizardry to control her powers. Granny's scenes are the best parts of this book: she seems to be Pratchett's earliest, best-developed, and favorite witch. Eskarina's dialogs with adults she meets along the journey are very funny, but we don't get to see her character develop very well. Pratchett's puns are in fine form in this book. The story's point, which seems to be about the separate-but-equal nature of witch and wizard magic, becomes confused and diluted; the sexist wizards, who are openly contemptuous of the idea of a female wizard, are never really shown up, and although Granny muses repeatedly about her distaste for wizard magic, she eventually winds up in a wizard's duel with Archchancellor Cutangle of Unseen University in which she matches him spell-for-spell. Is a witch really a wizard with extra psychic powers and practical skills in herbalism, "headology," and the good sense to know when to use psychology instead of magic? In that case, it is the wizards that are the simplistic, sexist stereotype, and I fail to see the value in fighting sexist stereotypes with different sexist stereotypes. As happens with frustrating frequency in Pratchett's novels, the ending becomes somewhat muddled: Eskarina is largely ignored in favor of scenes between Granny and Cutangle, and as the book winds up, she has yet to learn to read her first wizard spell, and a potentially interesting character, the powerful young wizard, Simon, is somewhat wasted as the story ends, like Sourcery, in a random spectacle of excess magic.
Rating:
Summary: Still a bit early
Review: Equal Rites is, again, a step forward for the series. While Esk isn't as dynamic as one might hope, and Granny Weatherwax is only on her way to her "true self," Equal Rites is by no means a bad book.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: There are three ways to look at "Equal Rites". First we view it as a farce, just like Pratchett's first two Discworld novels. Second, we can view it as an honest story about a girl's coming of age. Thirdly, we can view it as a sophisticated parody of fantasy conventions. But any way you slice it, "Rites" works pretty well. This is the start of Pratchett's rise from screwball comedy to literary greatness. His talent shines forth in the careful blending of the three different approaches to telling the story. There will be long patches of apparently serious prose, during which we see the interaction between the little girl Esk and Granny Weatherwax. Then, right when you least expect it, Pratchett gets you with a killer punchline. I think that my favorite moment is when Granny Weatherwax launches a diatribe against the wizard's staff that symbolically divides her from her pupil, after which the omnipresent narrator comments: "The staff regarded her woodenly." He he. Is it any wonder this guy is the second best-selling author in British history? Also of note is Pratchett's clever word choices and bizarre imagery. In one scene in the library where the books escape, the narrator notes "a flock of thesauruses" flying past.
Rating:
Summary: A story about sex
Review: Sir Terry Pratchett is, of course, the foremost writer of comedic fantasy these days. If you haven't yet read Pratchett, then there is a large gap in your education. Pratchett is best known for his Discworld novels, the Discworld being a disc (hence the name, obviously) that is travelling through space on the backs of four giant elephants who are, in turn, standing on the back of an enormous turtle. Magic works on this unique world, which is populated by a wide variety of fantastical creatures. This is the setting for Pratchett's funny, satirical, and insightful comments on the real world and the idiotic things that people do.
Equal Rites is the third Discworld novel, and in it Pratchett has, for the time being, taken leave of Rincewind, the hero from the first two Discworld adventures. We are instead introduced to the next major Discworld character, Granny Weatherwax, the pre-eminent witch of the Ramtops (Pratchett appears to have reused the last name of the late Archchancellor from The Light Fantastic, who is later revealed in The Discworld Companion as having been a distant relative of Granny's). The Ramtops area seems to have a large concentration of the magically apt (this having to do with the fact that the strong magical field of the Discworld earths itself here), since the current Archchancellor, Cutangle (who, like so many of the early Archchancellors, only appears in one book), also originally hailed from this area. Yes, I do have a life.
Every one knows that the eighth son of an eighth son will become a wizard, so when the wife of the smith in the village of Bad Ass - the smith himself being an eighth son - gives birth for the eighth time, it surprises no one that the wizard Drum Billet shows up to pass on his powerful wizard's staff to the newborn infant before he dies (and is reincarnated as an apple tree, and later as an intelligent ant). The only problem is, the good old wizard forgot to check the baby's sex.
As Pratchett says on the first page of the book, this is a story about magic, and also a story about sex. And it's a story about eight-year-old Eskarina Smith, commonly known as Esk, who is the eighth son of an eighth son, only she's a daughter. And girls can't become wizards, that's the lore (a pun, perhaps, on the way some English-speaking snobs can't properly pronounce the word "law"). So Esk becomes Granny's apprentice instead, training to become a witch. But in time it becomes clear that she has wizard's magic in her also, and this magic can't stay bottled up forever. Esk is protected by her staff, which has great power and a personality of its own (much like the Luggage), but ultimately the only place where Esk can find the help she needs is Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork, the high seat of wizardly magic on the disc. So she sets out on her journey, accompanied by Granny.
While on the way, Esk meets the boy-genius Simon, who has a permanent stutter and an even more permanent hayfever. Eventually, after some adventures, she arrives at Ankh-Morpork, but things do not go as she had hoped there. Instead, she gradually finds herself heading for a confrontation with the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions, who are always seeking to find a way into reality, and have now finally found that way. Only Esk can stop them.
In this story, Pratchett deals with the perceived differences and inequalities between the genders. He doesn't delve too deeply into this, however, which is a good thing. Equal Rites isn't quite Pratchett at his funniest best, and this book is perhaps a slightly weaker entry in the saga, between the peaks of The Light Fantastic and Mort. The ending is a bit anti-climactic, and there are, at times, gaps in the story where more could have been done. But, all in all, it's still a good story, and interesting enough to be an easy and lightly entertaining read.
Rating:
Summary: The series turns for the better
Review: Ok, the first half of book 1 was funny. From then on to the end of book 2 it just seemed to drag on, leaving many readers with the thought of "get on with it man!" Here now is book 3, what I thought the first 2 would feel like. This is the first book in the series with something that resembles a plot, and the first with some consistency. I would simply suggest skipping the first two books which simply defy the process of outlining. When the humor's not there because you're not paying attention, or because you haven't read the appropiate book or know the proper slang, (maybe it's just not there) the story will keep you reading. It falls a little flat at the end, but hey, then you can go read Mort.
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