I forgot the Title of this Fantasy Novel.

July 9, 2010 12:31 PM

I read a book about a young, girl wizard over 10 years ago and can't remember the name. It starts off with an old wizard who walks into a town where the 10th son of the 10th son of the 10th son was just born, and he transfers upon the baby all of his wizarding power. But the baby isn't a son, it's actually a daughter and this sets the scene for the rest of the book when the girl grows up to become the only female wizard, which rubs a lot of the wizarding community the wrong way.

When the girl is around 10, a wizard comes to her town and assigns a witch to be her mentor so she can learn how to use her magic. The magic of wizards deals more with creating things out of nothing whereas witches deal more with being one with nature. One time when the girl practices transferring her mind into that of a crow, she tries to take over the crow's mind and starts to merge consciousness with the bird and the witch has to untangle her psyche with that of the bird's. I seem to recall the title had Wizard in it but can't remember, and I remember the books was part of a series. Thanks and hopefully someone out there remembers this book cause it was one of the best I've read as a kid.

posted by wei2k to writing & language (13 answers total)

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett?
posted by evilbeck at 12:34 PM on July 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

Seconding Equal Rites.
posted by Uniformitarianism Now! at 12:35 PM on July 9, 2010

was coming in to say what evilbeck said. And it's the eighth son of the eighth son and so on.
posted by meijusa at 12:36 PM on July 9, 2010

Doesn't quite match with what I (vaguely) remember, but perhaps Tehanu, one of the Earthsea books?
posted by ecurtz at 12:37 PM on July 9, 2010

I think you're remembering Sir Terry Pratchett's Equal Rites. It's the third book in the Discworld series, and let me just say that if you're just starting reading Discworld now, I kind of envy you. You have so much literary pleasure in front of you.n Here's a reading order for you.

On preview, damn you, evilbeck! You beat me!
posted by Concolora at 12:37 PM on July 9, 2010 [3 favorites]

Yah, Equal Rites. But it's the 8th son of an 8th son of an 8th son. It's all about Octarine & the powers of 8 ;)
posted by Ys at 12:37 PM on July 9, 2010

yes! Equal Rights. that's the one! thanks you guys; you don't know how long this has been bothering me. now i can go and start reading the rest of this series.
posted by wei2k at 12:40 PM on July 9, 2010

Note: "Rites" is spelled differently from "Rights".
posted by amtho at 12:46 PM on July 9, 2010

As I was beaten to the reading order, I would also like to pipe up and say the audio books are quite good. You should be able to listen to samples on audible.com
posted by Wossname at 12:48 PM on July 9, 2010

Nthing that the entire Discworld series is fabulous and I highly strong recommend you read it all.
posted by olya at 12:52 PM on July 9, 2010 [1 favorite]

One observation - As far as I know, Esk (Eskarina, the protagonist) has never appeared again after Equal Rites. The Discworld series is definitely great (I'm at around book 30, still going through about 2 books a month), but if you're looking specifically for Eskarina, she doesn't show up again. Granny shows up in a few more, though, as do the wizards (although they become more goofy and less backstabbing).

The witches and wizards meet again in Lords and Ladies, but ideally you should have gone beforehand through the reading order for the witches and the wizards - which ideally means you also go through the early Rincewind books (which, besides being hilarious, got some early wizarding stuff), and the Death books (Death and the Wizards crossover a lot)

In other words, just read the whole damn thing :)
posted by qvantamon at 2:05 PM on July 9, 2010

Also, although yeah Eskarina hasn't shown up again, you should check out Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books (The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full Of Sky, and Wintersmith) for another great young-girl-becomes-magician series!
posted by The otter lady at 3:47 PM on July 9, 2010

Seconding Tiffany Aching. A marvelous set.
posted by Jasper Fnorde at 6:25 AM on July 10, 2010