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Group Reads Discussions 2008
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The Color of Magic - The rest of the Discworld series
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Elizabeth
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Aug 01, 2008 08:20AM
Have you read any of the other books in the Discworld series? How did they compare to The Color of Magic? Which ones would you recommend?
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As I mentioned in a different post, this is my first exposure to Terry Pratchett and/or to the Discworld series. I may have to delve in further. :)
I've read the first 9 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworl... for quick reference). Out of those, the ones dealing with the witches (Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters) are my least favorite. I just finished Eric, which is the shortest one so far but it's made me laugh out loud more than any of the ones before it.I think the tone of The Color of Magic has stayed through the books I've read, but I have no idea how long stays true. I find I have to take a break in between each Discworld book and read a few other things before picking up the next one.
Well, they would be a welcome break from many of the heavier themed stories I usually brood through. Thanks for the mini-reviews and I'll start adding them to my TBR.
I'm currently up to Moving Pictures, which is the 10th book. I think that starting around Mort and Sourcery (books 4 and 5), his writing style is more developed and there are much more laugh out loud moments than in the first few books. But I have enjoyed all of the books thus far.
I devour each Pratchett book as it comes out.I have to say that the Color of Magic and Light Fantastic are not my favorites. They're good, but this was before he really hit his stride. The character of Death has changed significantly since these early books.
Out of the various "series" of Discworld books, the Watch books are probably my favorite.
I've had the good fortune to exchange emails with Mr. Pratchett a few times and hope that he finds some way to beat the encroaching Alzheimer's he was diagnosed with this year.
I've read several and liked them all, but in varying degrees. I'm not sure how to characterize it, but Small Gods was excellent. I guess you could call it part of the Death cluster, but he shows up in just about every book. Potential trivia question: which Discworld novels does Death not appear in?
I was told it's the hard way to go about it but I'm reading the Discworld books in publication order as opposed to reading them in their 'series' groupings. While I enjoyed The Colour of Magic I thought The Light Fantastic was better.
http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-o...For those wondering how to tackle the Discworld series here is a rather useful diagram.
Colour of Magic in my opinion is ok, not great just a nice light read but the Rincewind books are not my favourite. In the early Discworld books Pratchett pokes fun at fantasy (“Guards!Guards!” and “Equal Rites” are good examples) and parodies it but in the later book he satirizes our own world (“Making Money”).
For all those unconvinced by Pratchett in the Colour of Magic read “Guards!Guards!” this is the first in the Watch sequence which I think is the strongest, best written, funniest part of this hilarious series, and introduces Pratchett best original and developed character in the paradoxical yet completely logical Sam Vimes.
I've read the first 11 books. I just love his sense for humor. My favorite till now is Moving Pictures - very good parody about Hollywood. Least of all is Pyramids. Wyrd Sisters and Guards! Guards! are great also.
I think I have now managed to read all of the books, and I agree with Patrick that I especially like the Watch-based books. Night Watch is my personal favorite. Also, I have found that I like the newer books more than the early ones, perhaps because of the expansion of Pratchett's satire to our own world, as mentioned.
I've read -- i think-- the first 16 books. Seems to me that after a while there got to be a certain sameness to them, that you'll get with nearly any author who writes a book a year. That said, i've read each one more than once and have found all of them entertaining. If you're looking to read more you might try using the handy chart Cicero linked, read the starter novels, then follow the line you like best all the way through.
I've read all of his books in the Discworld series and definitely enjoy the later ones more. I agree that he must have improved with practice. My favorites are the ones that pick up with previous characters, such as the Watch (my personal favorites), the witches, and the wizards. It's easy to see that as he develops these characters more thoroughly and you the reader becomes more familiar with them, the books become more entertaining and personal. And as Jess said, it's wonderful how Pratchett satires our own world more and more in his later books.I was hooked with the Color of Magic, but really those first 2 are nothing compared to his later ones.
For anyone that has read "Thud," there is a wonderful companion children's book called "Where's My Cow" which is a rendition of a book that Sam Vines reads in "Thud." It's wonderful.
Colour of Magic was the first Pratchett book I read, and I have to say it didn't inspire me, so much so I have never read the Light Fantastic and it took me several years to agree to read any other discworld books.I did eventually and started with Guards Guards, this still remains my favourite, although the Tiffany Aching trilogy is coming a close second. The only one I have left to read now is making money, which I am dubious about as I didn't particularly like going postal and I think it is a follow on from that.
From what I remember of The Colour Of Magic is that Death is a very different character, I know that he develops throughout the series, but from Equal Rites onwards you never see a vindictive side to him, which I vaguely remember there being in the first book when Rincewind wouldn't die.
I do think that Pratchett's style improved the later into the series, although i would say the last 3 or 4 books (excluding the Tiffany Aching books) were starting to feel a little stale. The guards books will always be my favourite, I just love those characters so much.
I've read a good number of his DiscWorld books and I think they get better as he goes along. I've not read them in order, but in the early books you can see flashes of what's to come.I think Hogfather is up there among the best and as others have mentioned, those that center on the Watch are always pretty good.
I've also jumped from book-to-book when I find them and I like the real-world parody he uses with these books. I read the books dealing with the wizards from UU and Rincewind but am not fond of them so much. Too flighty for me. I do like the witches books though, including the Aching books.
I just finished Color of Magic, I enjoyed it enough to go ahead and try out the next book. And it sounds like most people enjoy these books, I would like to read about the witches also. So I will continue on in the series.
I read the second book and liked it enough to read the whole series. Turns out there are a lot of books! Looks like 20 books!
I read the Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic a good while back, but I haven't gotten around to reading the others yet. I loved them both from what I can remember. The main reason I didn't pick another one up for a long time was that I never did the research to see what the next book I should read is. I'm a sucker for reading things in publication order so, it looks like it's on to Equal Rites for me. I need to write that down somewhere so I remember. heh.
I've also read all of Pratchett's works. Not surprising, some are better than others and people seem to react differently to each book depending on what they like/don't like. I'm particularily fond of anything with the Watch in it, and so-so on anything with the Witches. Yet, I absolutely loved the Tiffany Aching books. I liked Small Gods, but my friend bounced off of it. His last couple of books have been so-so for me; Making Money came across as frantic and forced.
His latest book is Nation. But! It is NOT a Discworld book.
Should there be an order to reading them? Or can you read them in any order?
You can definitely read them in any order, although I've read them by publication date just to follow Pratchett in his conception of the series. There are mini-arcs within the series, all the Witch book or all the Watch books, for example, that could be read in order. But Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic are really the only two I've read that directly rely on each other for their plots to make sense.
I really like the first two books because I like Twoflower. I wish he was in more than just one other one. It took me a long time to warm up to Rincewind though, but now I like his books and the Watch books the best. I haven't read many of the Witches books though, and the Death ones I've either really liked or really didn't like - not much in between. I've been reading them in, mostly, story line order. There've been a couple read out of order because I couldn't find them initially when it came time to read them. I don't think it really matters what order they're read in. They're all entertaining though. And I love looking at the L-Space page with annotations. Some references I catch but others I don't so it's fun to see them all. :)
Angie, at this website http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-o... you will find a suggested guide for reading order. The helpful part for me was it groups the books by topic. (Not that it helped me like the books any better, I've tried and don't find them intersting).
Thanks, I am going to follow the order that that link has!
