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Should I read Terry Pratchett... and where should I start?
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Similar situation, never read him but want to. I think I'm just going to start at the first one unless someone convinces me differently.
Forget the first couple, even TP said that he didn't know what plots were till further down the line. The classic ones are probably "Mort" "Small Gods" or the Watch books "Guards, Guards" etc. He is amazing, and I've read them all. Hope this helps.
Mod
Any of Mort, Equal Rites, Small Gods, or Guards! Guards! would make a good starting point.
Highly recommend one of three for a good first impression: "Monstrous Regiment": Almost entirely disconnected from other stories, but shows Pratchett's love for turning things on their ear and showcases the way in which he uses classical fantasy 'creatures' as....just different people with different specializations.
"Small Gods": Great book not only for the uninitiated, but also for its interesting subtext about organized groups, especially religions. Great philosopher jokes, and two compelling characters, one of whom brings empathy and some small humility to the concept of the Greek gods who play games with the lives of men.
"Going Postal": Not a typical starting point, because it slams you cold turkey in the middle of the cultural hustle and bustle that Pratchett has built up through many years of storytelling. But if you like a good con man story, especially the con-man with a heart of gold, then this is perfect, and a wonderful read besides. You won't have ALL the subtlety of background that longtime readers understand about the systems of communications in discworld, or the history of the golems, but that is not really necessary and is all introduced succinctly enough for purposes of the one book.
I really do hope you both try one. Read them not as a parody of fantasy, which is what Pratchett was trying with the first few books, but as an odd reflection of people, places, and politics, and a satire of the crazy things we all do; which is what the books rather morphed into.
Cheers!
The wrong way to read Discworld is to start at the beginning. The first half dozen books are awful. Luckily they weren't available in the US when I started, so I just picked up a random volume in the middle.If I had to choose a good starting place, I'd go with Small Gods. While all the books stand on their own pretty well, this is one of the few that doesn't feature any recurring characters at all (except Death), and it has one of the deeper and more meaningful plots in the series.
Have to agree that you shouldn't start at the beginning, The Nightwatch series is by far the best part of Discworld. Guards Guards
Men at Arms
Feet of Clay
Jingo
The 5th Elephant
Nightwatch
Thud!
Snuff
Absolute Bliss!
Gosh I don't know. Do you like British humor? The kind where instead of laughing you are thinking, oh I see, that is funny. To me that is Pratchett, Douglas Adams, etc.I've tried a few but the only set I really liked (so far) were the Tiffany Aching series, starting with The Wee Free Men. That little group starts with a precocious young witch but turns into a deeper felt story about a growing witch.
I'd recommend Good Omens too. I read a ton of Pratchett books when I was younger, and most of them have faded from memory, but I still do remember that one. I think it's one of his best.Or for Discworld, Equal Rites is a great one.
Funny thing, I remember characters from discworld way better than individual books. The individual books all sorta bleed together, but a lot of his characters are great and still memorable. Death. Death of rats. Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg and the witches.
My suggestion - stick with anything "Discworld" EXCEPT the first two ("The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic") which were penned before the late Sir Terry had really got into his stride and contain a bit of early instalment weirdness. The main appeal of Discworld is that while they are very funny books indeed, they are not JUST humorous works, in the manner of Tom Holt, Robert Rankin or Piers Anthony. Each work is also a philosophical treatise containing many brilliant observations on life, human relationships and existence. For each novel he picks a particular subject (Shakespeare, China, Death, Rock music, Australia, Film Noir, Hollywood, Racism, etc) then proceeds to play with every trope and cliche related to that particular subject, stuffing each story full of allusions, cultural references and unanswered questions. Add the fact that his dialogue is some of the funniest ever written and really, it's hard to go wrong. Best among an excellent bunch are Mort, Men at Arms, Thud, Lords and Ladies, Soul Music, Wyrd Sisters and Witches Abroad, though really you can pick up any of them and be sure of an enjoyable read.
I'd also like to give an honorary mention to his "non fiction" works, too... such as "Darwin's Watch" which deals with science in a hilarious and extremely thoughtful way.
Hope this helps.
Thank you all very much. There are three books that got mentioned several time. Guards!Guards, Small Gods and Mort - although, Equal rites and Men at arms have a few mentions too. Phew. I think, I'll have a look which of those seems most appealing.
Mod
That's probably the biggest turn-off I've read on Pratchett so far.
I started with Mort and I am glad I did. I am new to Pratchett as well, and Mort made me want to keep going with the series.
My first Pratchett was Gourds! Gourds! and it's a great starting point.Small Gods is also very good and stands on its own.
I also like Pyramids as a standalone. It's book #7 and I think that's when Terry hit his stride.
I intend to reread Pyramids with Passover just around the corner.
Zivan wrote: "My first Pratchett was Gourds! Gourds! and it's a great starting point.Small Gods is also very good and stands on its own.
I also like Pyramids as a standalone. It's book #7 and I think that's w..."
I can totally see "Gourds! Gourds!" as a sequel to Pratchett's fictitous "The World of Poo" children's book which became a real published work. Truly the kind of thing he would do!
I'm glad to hear other people say that The Color of Magic was not that good...I was starting to think it was just me.I saw the Hogfather movie and though Death was cool. I'm glad I have a good excuse to just skip to the Death books, eventually. Right now I want to get through Bring Up the Bodies before Wolf Hall comes on PBS next month.
Mort, Guards! Guards! or Small Gods are great places to start as detailed above. I started with Moving Pctures which was a parody of 1930s Hollywood. Enjoyable but not one of his best.
Is it the time to point out that apart from 'Strata' and 'Dark side of the sun', Pratchett's work is more fantasy than SCi-fi? I know there's some cross-over but Pratchett's work doesn't really straddle the sci-fi/Fantasy line.
Well, I know, but as many you you also read fantasy (as does Luke), I thought the opinions here might be interesting. And we also read (or as I did partly) Curse of Chalion, which isn't Sci-Fi either, I think a little excursion is fine.
I agree, in fact I tend towards Fantasy. Just checked my 5* books and it looks about 11 sci-fi - 15 fantasy! Thought it was more towards fantasy
Tips wrote: "Is it the time to point out that apart from 'Strata' and 'Dark side of the sun', Pratchett's work is more fantasy than SCi-fi? I know there's some cross-over but Pratchett's work doesn't really s..."
If you define "science fiction" as stories that examine how new technologies and scientific discoveries affect society, then I think the Discworld novels have a better claim to being science fiction than most military-SF.
I wouldn't use that term to define science fiction, Science fiction has many defining characteristics (some are shared with other genres), Discworld is set in a medieval steampunk style world with magic spells, Dragons, witches, kings and Queens, etc. In my opinion those are fantasy not science fiction.
Hmmmm.....any series that uses the word "Quantum" as much as Discworld does has a claim to a large science fiction component in its makeup in my view. As Arthur C Clarke so famously pointed out, the two genres mostly distinguish themselves not by their events but by their explanation of the causes of those events. Throw some implications into any fantasy novel that exotic matter or nanotechnology is involved, and all the magic is suddenly plausibly science (well; distantly so, but hey, it's fiction) or throw anything so exotically advanced that it is inexplicable into a science fiction book, and it is a practical fantasy.
This is why I like the term speculative fiction so much. Whether we are meant to take things as one genre or the other mostly just depends on how the author wants to present his explanations and inexplicables.
Mod
Mmm! A good description, writ large. Of course, there are definitely many mixings and exceptions, as there aways are.
Luke wrote: "Fantasy is a genre of tropes. Science fiction is a genre of ideas. Fantasy is defined by its ingredients, and science fiction is defined by how new ingredients might be mixed."If only it was that simple!
I think the overlap of Sci-Fi and Fantasy is almost as wide as both categories put together.
Mod
Always remember: genres belong to books, books don't belong to a genre.
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Wee Free Men (other topics)Monstrous Regiment (other topics)
Small Gods (other topics)
Going Postal (other topics)
Small Gods (other topics)
Many people say his stuff is amazing. If you're one of them, convince me to start getting into it. 70 books is a lot, I would be glad about advice which is the best book to start with.