Equal Rites by Terry Pratchet

For those who haven't been following, I was really into Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies, of the Discworld series. So instead of going through all the books in consecutive order, I decided to follow the witches storyline, starting with Equal Rites. It starts out as somewhat of a parody to Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, given the magical power of the number 8, telling the story of an eighth son. Only the 8th son turned out to be a daughter, with the femme-wizardly name of Escarina.

Of course on the disc, there'd never before been a female wizard. So Escarina has to save the day and all that in order to be somewhat officially received into the Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork. While this story is funny and altogether brilliant, I didn't feel as touched nor inspired as I've been with some of Pratchett's other works (mainly Lords and Ladies). Still, I think any fantasy fan should check this one out, as well as everything by Pratchett. I'm a firm believer that he deserved all the hype toward him.