I delayed reading Eric for quite some time as, after reading Sourcery, I thought I probably wasn't going to enjoy it. The last Discworld book featuring Rincewind the Wizard, you see, was a somewhat boring and plotless jaunt. As it turns out, however, I needn't of worried; Eric was excellent.
Perhaps the greatest strength of the book was its length, as Eric was the shortest Dicsworld book so far, only taking me a couple of hours to read. Suggesting that a good book benefited from being short may be tantamount to heresy for many, but I found that Pratchett had a tendency to lose his way about two thirds of the way through many of the other Discworld books and the writing would tail off considerably; a shorter word count, however, leaves less room for filler, and Eric was consistently excellent all the way through.
While the tighter focus cut down on the fluff, it in no way reduced the usual Pratchett humour. The irreverent view of everything from the Trojan war, to the rulers of hell (the various imps and devils being the highlight of the book), was consistently spot on and I had about the same number of laugh out loud moments as any other Discworld novel, just compressed into a smaller time frame. I wouldn't say it was my favourite of Pratchett's books, but Rincewind the wizard was never my favourite character anyway. Nevertheless, it was a thoroughly enjoyable read and one I will no doubt be returning to in the future.
