In episode three, comedian Cal Wilson is back to discuss the book that started her passion for Terry Pratchett – Sourcery! It’s the fifth Discworld novel, published in 1989, and both revisits locations and characters from the first two books and takes us to new parts of the Disc.
Happy to have left his adventuring days behind him, inept “wizzard” Rincewind now works as assistant librarian at Unseen University, the Disc’s premiere college for wizards. But just as a new archchancellor is about to be named, a young boy arrives. Coin is the eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son: a Sourcerer, a source of raw magic not seen on the Disc since the ancient time of the Mage Wars. As Coin takes over the university and wizards across the world awaken to power they’ve never known, the end of the world draws nigh…and Rincewind just can’t seem to avoid getting involved.
Rincewind was Pratchett’s first protagonist, and this novel exemplifies all the things that make us love him: genre-awareness, unrepentant cowardice, reluctant heroism, lack of any skill at wizardry and fierce self-identification as a wizard. It also sees the return of the Luggage, a living chest which follows Rincewind wherever he goes. It was a delight for us all to see these characters again, and we have grand plans to go back to their beginnings in the very first Discworld novels…
In the meantime, when you’ve finished listening to this episode, get ready for the next one by reading Wyrd Sisters! We’ll be recording on January 14th, so get your questions in ASAP if you’d like us to answer them on the podcast.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:32:03 — 91.8MB)
Guest Cal Wilson (she/her) was a stand-up comedian and children’s author. She previously appeared in our first episode, “Boots Theory“. At the time of publishing Cal was about to tour a new live stand-up show, Hindsight, in multiple cities at festivals throughout 2018. (You can see the poster she mentions in our episode notes.) Cal passed away unexpectedly after a brief illness in October 2023; she is sorely missed.
You can find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.
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It’s good to see a podcast about STP… But It does seem that you have forgotten that so much of it is parody of different times and places in real life and in different forms of entertainment… but that it is also a parady of how books are written and thre tropes that have come about with that, those tropes and literary devices that he doesnt likeare always pushed to the forground. He is trying to show what is wrong with the devices and why they dont work. Connina’s arc shows this. She is trying to fight against being a barbarian and wants to be a regular woman, which is why she falls in love with nigel. He is just a regular man trying and failing at being a barbarian, it is the best comprimise for the mind set.
Also i dont see what is wrong with the tone for the seripfh and klatch, a paradoy is not a place to be expecting social justice or anything like that. the exgaeration of the place is indicitive of what happens in stories like the ones from 1001 nights.