Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Terry Pratchett: Eric

The story of a young demon summoner who on his first attempt snares the most unlikely of demons. The incompetent wizard Rincewind!

Eric, being the typical sort of boy, wants only three things to live forever, be master of the universe and have a gorgeous babe. Typical of most “deal with the Devil” stories, he got his wishes, all three of them. Not that he wanted them when he got them, but he did get them. He was master of the universe, and found out that being master entailed a bit of ritual sacrifice. He had a hot babe, only to learn that she had caused a major war (very like Troy) and really wasn’t all that hot after a few kids. And he got to live forever, which entailed going back to the beginning of time and living from there. Will all of the millennia to wait until even primitive primates evolved let alone other people. Finally he learned the true cause of his misfortune and ended up saving Hell itself from a fate worse than Hell…tedium.

Another triumph by Terry, in a highly amusing, hold your sides to keep them from bursting as you laugh, masterpiece. With my favorite character of all…LUGGAGE! (tip: Do not piss off the luggage. It’s a very bad idea.) The very gates of Hell itself tremble at the sight of the great and powerful Luggage. This is explained very simply:

“There is no way to describe how angry you can get by running nearly twice the
length of the space-time continuum and the Luggage had been pretty annoyed to start with, although with the Luggage there wasn’t any reliable way to tell this because it spent all of its time beyond, in a manner of speaking, the hostility event horizon. The doors of Hell were ancient it wasn’t just time and heat that had baked them into something like black granite, they’d picked up fear and a dull evil too and were bright enough to be dimly aware of what their future was likely to hold. They watch Luggage shuffle back, flex its legs and crouch down. The lock clicked, the bolts slid hurriedly back the great bars jerked from their sockets and the doors flung themselves back against the wall.” This is Luggage, which even the very doors of Hell fear.

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