Anything by Terry Pratchett falls into the category of “dry humor” while still touching on rich concepts of destiny and purpose. In Equal Rites, a dying wizard is looking to pass his staff on to the eighth son of an eighth son (because eight is a magic number here); however, he notices too late that this child is actually a girl, whose power soon grows unwieldy. Equal Rites is technically the third of 41 short novels in Pratchett’s Discworld series, although readers could jump into any of the books in this collection and still be perfectly satisfied by Pratchett’s creativity, humor, and expansive worldbuilding.
Opening Line: “This is a story about magic and where it goes and perhaps more importantly where it comes from and why, although it doesn’t pretend to answer all or any of these questions.”
Favorite Line: “They both savored the strange warm glow of being much more ignorant than ordinary people, who were only ignorant of ordinary things.”
Why I Like It: Terry Pratchett’s humor and my humor are the same thing. Also, his writing is very compatible with Gaiman’s, who is my absolute favorite — Pratchett co-authored my favorite book of his, so I’m always looking for more of his amazing stories.
Read If You Like: Very funny witches, Howl’s Moving Castle, specifically Hermione from Harry Potter.