One of the interesting things I'm finding as I read the Discworld novels is how a throwaway joke one place gets expanded upon in a later novel. For example, the bit about the wizards' Unseen University being a lethal parody of academia that appeared in earlier books gets expanded in Sourcery to become one of the core conceits of the entire novel.

The problem with this is that sometimes those throw away jokes don't really stand up to closer examination, and this was one of them. Unseen University simply doesn't work very well. Why would anyone actually want to join it? Why would wizards keep training new wizards if they're simply going to try to kill them?

Yes, I'm thinking about it too hard, but that's the point. The absurdity, when examined in more detail, drew me out of the story instead of making me chuckle and move on.

Still, once I got past that, the book was probably the most entertaining of the Rincewind books I've read so far. The only thing that kept it from getting a fourth star was the bit about Unseen University that I just finished discussing. The rest of it, especially the new supporting characters, was quite good.