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A review by dreamingofspaceships
Eric by Terry Pratchett
4.0
My quest to read the entirety of Discworld in the order of publication enters its third year.
Eric is... fine. Pretty good, even, at some points. Terry Pratchett's prose and writing style are as amazing as ever and as I have come to realise the more I read these books - almost unparalleled and unique. And his humour - my god, the humour!
The plot is pretty good and zips along at a breakneck pace. I love a good "wishes gone wrong because of wording" and one particular occurrence of that trope here was just breathtaking. The characters are decent. I have warmed up to Rincewind by now. Death and Luggage, two of my favourite characters, have some cool moments. The eponymous Eric is also, well, not intolerable. The villain though was amazing - reminded me of some real world people who shall remain unnamed for the sake of my continued employment. Terry, you magnificent bastard! I laughed all the way through the ending (and the rest of the book too, of course).
But, all said and done - I do feel like this is lacking... something. Especially following the incredibly strong Pyramids and Guards, Guards. This is a much shorter work and towards the end a bit rushed. Feels almost like a short story than a novel (though at 200 pages, I suppose that is just a testament to how easy and fun reading PTerry's writing is rather than it actually being so short as to be categorised as a short story). So definitely an improvement over Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic, which I never fully got into. Looking forward to #10 now - Onwards.
4/5 stars for this
Eric is... fine. Pretty good, even, at some points. Terry Pratchett's prose and writing style are as amazing as ever and as I have come to realise the more I read these books - almost unparalleled and unique. And his humour - my god, the humour!
The plot is pretty good and zips along at a breakneck pace. I love a good "wishes gone wrong because of wording" and one particular occurrence of that trope here was just breathtaking. The characters are decent. I have warmed up to Rincewind by now. Death and Luggage, two of my favourite characters, have some cool moments. The eponymous Eric is also, well, not intolerable. The villain though was amazing - reminded me of some real world people who shall remain unnamed for the sake of my continued employment. Terry, you magnificent bastard! I laughed all the way through the ending (and the rest of the book too, of course).
But, all said and done - I do feel like this is lacking... something. Especially following the incredibly strong Pyramids and Guards, Guards. This is a much shorter work and towards the end a bit rushed. Feels almost like a short story than a novel (though at 200 pages, I suppose that is just a testament to how easy and fun reading PTerry's writing is rather than it actually being so short as to be categorised as a short story). So definitely an improvement over Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic, which I never fully got into. Looking forward to #10 now - Onwards.
4/5 stars for this