Book:Sourcery

Book:Sourcery
Sourcery
Co-author(s)	{{{coauthors}}}
Illustrator(s)	{{{illustrator}}}
Publisher	Victor Gollancz
Publication date	May 1988
ISBN	0552131075
Pages	269
RRP
Main characters	Rincewind The Luggage Nijel the Destroyer Coin Conina
Series	Rincewind Series
Annotations	View
Notes	Book #05
All data relates to the first UK edition.

Blurb

There was an eighth son of an eighth son. He was, quite naturally, a wizard. And there it should have ended. However (for reasons we'd better not go into), he had seven sons. And then he had an eighth son... a wizard squared... a source of magic... a Sourcerer.

Characters

Main characters

• Marmaric Carding
• Coin
• Conina
• The Luggage
• Nijel the Destroyer
• Rincewind
• Spelter

Minor characters

• Abrim, the Grand Vizier of Al Khali
• Creosote, the Seriph of Al Khali
• Ipslore the Red
• Librarian
• Havelock Vetinari
• Virrid Wayzygoose

Cameos

• Death and the temporarily Horse-less men of the Apocralypse:
  • War
  • Famine
  • Pestilence
• Skarmer Billias
• Gravie Derment, of the Sages of the Unknown Shadow
• Ice Giants
• Larry the Fox or perhaps Fezzy the Stoat
• Ovin Hakardly, a 7th level wizard who can speak punctuation
• Wuffles
• Ardrothy Longstaff, seller of pork pies
• Miskin Koble, who runs a jellied starfish and clam stall, and is killed by a wizard he attempts to hit
• Benado Sconner, leader of a group of wizards who burn down the library. The text specifically informs us that his name is "not worth committing [...] to memory"
• Genie of the lamp of Creosote's grandfather, who is somewhat over-committed
• Blind Io

Mentioned

• Maligree, a sourcerer
• Gritoller Mimpsey, vice-president of the Thieves' Guild
• Cohen, Conina's father
• Hashishim, a group of mad killers named after the vast quantities of hashish they consumed
• Thugs, a nastier group of cut-throats, not named after a religious sect
• Ly Tin Wheedle, arguably the Disc's greatest philosopher (at least, he always argued that he was)

Locations

• Ankh-Morpork
  • The Mended Drum
  • Plaza of Broken Moons
  • Sator Square
  • The Shades
    • The Troll's Head, a truly disreputable tavern
  • Sniggs Alley (mentioned)
  • Unseen University
    • Great Hall
    • Tower of Art
    • Library

• Carrack Mountains, overlooking the Sto Plains

• Cori Celesti, where the gods dwell, at the Hub

• Circle Sea

• Klatch
  • Al Khali
    • The Soak, a kind of bazaar
    • Wilderness of Creosote
    • Rhoxie, the Seriph's Palace
    • River Tsort
    • temple of Offler the Crocodile God, patron deity of Al Khali
  • Lost City of Ee (mentioned)

• Mount Gebra, a mountain where goats graze

• Quirm, which overlooks the Rim Ocean

Timeframe

• Small Gods' Eve, on which it's considered extremely bad form to kill a brother wizard and Small Gods' Day, the next morning
• Year of the Hyena
• Soul Cake Tuesday (mentioned)

Things Mentioned

• Books
  • Anima Unnaturale, a book written by Broomfog that describes many unusual animals
  • Fullomyth, a mystical book with a lot of information
  • Inne Juste 7 Dayes I wille make you a Barbearian Hero!
  • Wellcome to Ankh-Morporke, Citie of One Thousand Surprises, a book published by the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Merchants
• Spells
  • Brother Hushmaster's Potent Asp-Spray, a powerful spell
  • Maligree's Wonderful Garden, a powerful spell
  • Megrim's Accelerator, a powerful spell
• Archchancellor's Hat, worn on the head by the head of all wizards
• Apocralypse and Teatime of the Gods
• Ocean Waltzer, a ship that takes Rincewind and Conina to Klatch
• orakh, a powerful alcoholic beverage
• Klatchian Coffee, a powerful "anti-alcoholic" beverage that makes its drinkers knurd
• Triple Orcthrust with Extra Flip, a nifty sword manoeuvre that will impress your enemies right up until it leaves your sword stuck in the ceiling
• geas, an unusual kind of bird (also a kind of quest)
• Mage Wars
• the Lore, which rules all wizards, but not sourcerers
• Significant Quest, a game whose name parodies Trivial Pursuit
• Five Moons of Nasreem, an important mythological concept in Al Khali
• Seventeen Siderites of Sarudin, goddesses(?) by which genies can presumably be commanded
• Two Beards of Imtal, an important mythological concept in Al Khali
• Dungeon Dimensions
• racial memory, the concept that people are born with memories of their ancestors

Adaptations

Terry Pratchett has stated that Sourcery will be the fifth Discworld novel to be adapted for Sky One, although he initially wanted to adapt Making Money. However, he thinks it may work better as a film and he can have fun with characters like Nijel the Destroyer

Annotations

• Did Spelter and Carding violate the Small Gods' Eve truce by attacking each other with Megrim's Accelerator and Brother Hushmaster's Potent Asp-Spray? Or did they carefully wait until after midnight before doing so?

• Notice that near the end of the book, the daughter of the Mended Drum's owner tells Creosote the very story of Sourcery itself, a recursive reference. If, as some suspect, the History Monks were active in restoring things after the Sourcerer very nearly wrecked the fabric of Discworld space-time (a case may be made from cryptic references in later books) then it is fitting the only survival of the Sourcerer, in folk-memory, should be a fairy-tale. After all, people thought the story of the "Glass Clock of Bad Schuschein" was only a fairy tale – fitting, as the History Monks laboured long and hard that this should be so... we are told that most people, after the Sourcerer had passed, were left with faded, hazy, confused, dream-like memories of what might have happened. This is where fairy-tales begin...

External links

• Sourcery on the Annotated Pratchett File

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