Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

I have to say that I was disappointed by this book. It is the fourth Discworld novel I've read (after Mort, Small Gods and Guards! Guards!), and it compares about as favourably as a dead meerkat. The vital spark and vim so essential to Pratchett's main characters was absent until the very end of the book, and throughout I had the sense that the story was building up to something grand and hilarious. Instead it was like listening to the Bolero without the crescendo. Slowly doddering along, not really going anywhere. The book didn't even have a lot to say about gender relations. Small Gods made me pause for thought a a fair few occasions, making me ponder such questions as 'What does that giant turtle thing carrying the world actually swim through?' But in Equal Rites it was just some silly women and some even sillier men bashing their narrow minds together, until finally joining together and the end (very quickly and with very little explanation). But what saddened me most was the almost total lack of Pratchett's signature footnotes. It just didn't feel like a proper, well-constructed member of the Discworld series. And thus, I pass judgement upon it, condemning it with a mere 3/10.