Equal Rites (Discworld #3, Witches #1)

Equal Rites is the story of a girl who unexpectedly inherits a wizard staff and wants to attend Unseen University to become a wizard. But in Discworld, wizardry is a male profession, while witchcraft is a female one. As you’d expect from Pratchett, that won’t stand - and hilarity ensues along with mockery of long-standing tropes and traditions.

Since I restarted reading Discworld as audiobooks a few years ago, this is the earliest book in the series I’ve picked up - and it shows (a bit). Pratchett is still finding his voice here, with the jokes being less frequent and often a bit simpler than in later books. One example: Granny Weatherwax is from the countryside where she keeps goats, but enjoys her first visit to Ankh-Morpork so much that:

In short, Granny was even wondering about the possibility of acquiring slightly larger premises with a bit of garden and sending for her goats. The smell might be a problem, but the goats would just have to put up with it.

Funny for sure, but more predictable than I’m used to from his later works.

This was also the first Discworld audiobook by narrator Indira Varma, as I’d previously mostly listened to Stephen Briggs’ narrations. It took me a while to get used to Varma, as I found her character voices to be less distinct than Briggs’. But by the end of the book I started recognizing the character voices more easily, so hopefully that’s less of a “problem” in the next book in the Witches subseries (Wyrd Sisters).