Walpurgis Rites - Hexenwahn - Belphegor

Last Rites

Advantages: Original, excellent live
Disadvantages: No second album as yet...

It isn't easy to provide a lengthy and detailed review of a band who have only been around for several years and have (as yet) brought out just the one album (although there is talk of a second being released this year). However, Last Rites are worthy of a mention because, aside from anything else, this is another band related to Fields of the Nephilim, and indeed they were mentioned in passing in my review of FOTN and of Rubicon. I'm not sure why Ciao have plced them in the Hard Rock, Metal and Punk section as they really ought to be in the Alternative section, which is where I asked for them to be... ah well, never mind! Last Rites was formed by Paul and Nod Wright, who were the songwriting backbone of Fields of the Nephilim and were also in Rubicon after FOTN split up. What makes them intriguing is that their sound is not ...

bagoproverbial 10.01.2005 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Last Rites

Rites of passage

Advantages: Introduction to wit and Weatherwaxes
Disadvantages: Poor supporting cast, open ending

containing entirely stupid male characters is unrealistic and makes his political point of equal rites laboured. Were Pratchett succeeds is in providing a short, sharp tale that while based in fantasy is obviously a political sideswipe at the "glass ceiling" for women prevalent in male dominated professions. Nonetheless, this is a good read largely due to one liners from Granny Weatherwax and observations on life by Pratchett. He has an uncanny ability to make you laugh out loud in all his novels and this is no exception. Smith: "Do you know how wizards like to be buried?" Granny Weatherwax: "Yes!" Smith: "Well, how?" Granny Weatherwax: "Reluctantly." "If broomsticks were cars, this one would be a split-window Morris Minor." At 293 pages it is short enough to hold interest throughout and doesn't have the initial drag as some ...

dididave 14.10.2004 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett

I Demand Equal Rites!

Advantages: Funny, light reading...
Disadvantages: ... lacks the brilliance of later Discworld books.

Equal Rites is the third in the Discworld series of books. At the beginning an old wizard, who knows he has only a few minutes to live, journeys to a remote village with a silly name in order to pass on his staff to a deserving recipient. He knows that an eighth son of an eighth son has been born, and these are traditionally sorcerers. Off he goes then, looked at with interest by the many goats in the region, and the blacksmith's cat. He tells the blacksmith that his eighth son, just born, will become a wizard and passes on his staff to him, and promptly dies. All is right with the world. Except? the eighth son isn't actually a son at all. She's a daughter, and everyone knows that women can't become wizards. Witches yes, but wizards? Of course not. Everyone knows this. Everyone except the highly magical staff, that is? Thus ...

CaptainDisaster 27.06.2006 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett