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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34506.The_Light_Fantastic_A_Discworld_Novel?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Light Fantastic: A Discworld Novel (Mass Market Paperback)" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1168566177m/34506.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34506.The_Light_Fantastic_A_Discworld_Novel?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">The Light Fantastic: A Discworld Novel</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1654.Terry_Pratchett">Terry Pratchett</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/28987832?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 5 of 5 stars<br/>I'm pretty sure people have told me about Pratchett and his Diskworld series before, usually working in the phrase "He's the Douglas Adams of fantasy" into the description. But the problem was that I always felt that I had had enough of Adams after the third Hithiker's Guide to the Galaxy book, and whenever I scanned Pratchett's section in the bookstore I was immediately put off by not knowing where to start reading among the approximately five hundred thousand Diskworld books. I'm glad I finally took the time to find out that these two books, The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, jointly comprise the first tale in the series, and that they were definitely worth reading. <br/> <br/>The Diskworld books are essentially satire of the high fantasy genre, or at least that's the foundation upon which everything else is built. This pair of books follows the misadventures of Rincewind, a utterly inept and thoroughly cowardly wizard, and Twoflowers, a clueless traveler who happens to be in possession of both endless optimism and a magical suitcase that's always wandering off and messily devouring people who get in its way. Things go from bad to worse for the two as divine powers both deliver them into and yank them out of all kinds of fantastic perils. <br/> <br/>As someone who grew up reading plenty of this kind of thing and playing a lot of Dungeons& Dragons, I'm familiar enough with the genre and trappings that Pratchett lampoons. Yes, there's the Conan parody, there's the Dragonriders of Pern tribute, there's the in-joke about Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser. But that's easy. The thing that made me almost immediately fall in love with these books is the author's dry wit and his ability to derive humor not only from the absurdity of the story (and believe me, it gets plenty absurd) but also from just good old fashioned turns of phrase, wry commentary, and jokes. The guy just has an amazing ability to stuff five or six jokes into a single sentence, most of them making masterful use of that trusty standby of British humor, irony. It's really smart and really funny, and the fact that it builds on the inherent silliness of the high fantasy genre is just icing. <br/> <br/>I should also note how imaginative Pratchett is, which is a useful quality given his subject matter. He bounces his heroes from one (generally horrible and dangerous) situation to another at a frantic pace, and his ability to come up with new material and new situations amazes me. And while many of them are obvious parodies of fantasy staples, just as many seem to be wholly new creations. As one small (and obligatory) example, the Diskworld itself is a flat coin of a world that rides atop four enormous elephants, who themselves ride on the back of a colossal turtle with two continent-sized flippers that it uses to swim slowly through the cold reaches of space. <br/> <br/>But at the same time, if I have one complaint about these first two books, it's that they're almost maniacal in their plotting. While it's nice to see Pratchett's considerable imagination and humor on display as we go from situation to situation, the first book reads like an extended doodle with little plot and a whole "gods playing games with mortals" subtext that's entirely dropped in the next book. There's also one Conan the Barbarian parody that's abruptly dropped in favor of another Conan the Barbarian parody who Pratchett apparently liked better. It's not until the latter part of the second book does an overall plot come into play, but honestly I was enjoying myself so much I really didn't mind. Expect to see lots more Discworld books reviewed here in the future. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1385106?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>