R.I.P. Sir Terry

[simrion]

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31858156

[T. Foster]

This is no less sad because we all knew it was coming. I eventually burned out on Discworld before reading all the books (disadvantaged by getting a late start - if I'd started reading them in the 90s and didn't have such a huge initial backlog I'd probably have had an easier time keeping up) but this news inspires me to perhaps pick them back up - if not all of them at least perhaps the "best" of the ones I never got to.

Which, I suppose, brings up a question: what are folks' favorite Discworld novels from roughly the second half of the series? FWIW I tend to like the City Watch books best, then the Death books, then the Witches, then the "inventions" books, and the Rincewind books least. Small Gods (which doesn't fit into any of those categories) is my favorite of the ones I've read by a pretty wide margin.

[Chainsaw]

I've never read any of his stuff, Fos. What would you recommend for a first read?

[TRP]

I've never read any of his stuff, Fos. What would you recommend for a first read?

I'm in that same boat. If you could read only one of Pratchett's novels, then which one would it be?

[Falconer]

See here and here.

[Matthew]

I would say that The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic are probably still the best introduction to Disk World. That said, I only read the first half of the series, as I lost interest, so I could be wrong. Certainly the high point of what I read of the series was Small Gods.

[T. Foster]

I'd recommend starting with Guards, Guards!, which is the 8th book of the series but the first of the City Watch sub-series, so it introduces a bunch of new characters and is a good starting place. Plus it's one of the best, at least of those I've read. If you don't like it you probably won't like any of the others much better. If you do like it and get hooked you can backtrack and catch up on the earlier, less good ones.

[Werral]

I really liked 'Mort', 'Guards Guards' and 'Equal Rites'. 'Good Omens' which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman is also very good.

[ligedog]

I'd recommend starting with Guards, Guards!, which is the 8th book of the series but the first of the City Watch sub-series, so it introduces a bunch of new characters and is a good starting place.

I'm totally with you on this one. The Rincewind books tend to get pretty esoteric fast, though I think Sourcerer is also a good introductory novel. I like the City Watch books and the one's with the Witches the most. For me he's a little like Vance - it took me a couple of tries to start reading him and then I ended up reading as much his work as I could.

[TRP]

What about non-Discworld stories? Anything to recommend there, or is Discworld his best works? I'm not sure I want to get involved (teased into) a series at this point.

[Clangador]

Clang is very sad about this.

[Wheggi]

Found this flow chart that may help some figure out where to start



- Wheggi

[T. Foster]

What about non-Discworld stories? Anything to recommend there, or is Discworld his best works? I'm not sure I want to get involved (teased into) a series at this point.

In that case, Good Omens (co-written with Neil Gaiman) is probably the best way to go. It's not (IMO) quite as good as the best Discworld novels (or, for that matter, the best Neil Gaiman books) but it stands alone and will give a good idea of what Terry Pratchett was "all about."

However, that said, the Discworld novels (except for the first two) aren't very serialized - they have a persistent setting and recurring characters but each book's plot pretty much stands alone, so you could easily read one or two and not feel like you've committed yourself to an entire 30+ volume series or even a 5-6 volume sub-series. Also, even within the Discworld-verse Small Gods stands almost completely apart - it isn't part of any of the sub-series and doesn't even really feature any of the recurring locations or characters. The only reason I don't recommend it as the starting place is because since I think it's the best one reading it first would set too high a standard for the rest of the series. Better to work up to it...

[thedungeondelver]

Sadly, I have to admit I never ready any of Sir Terry's works - what's the best starting point with the Discworld books?

[Zenopus Archives]

Recently I was with the kids at the local library and spied a hardcover single volume of the first two Discworld novels, The Colour of Magic and the Light Fantastic, sitting on the shelf of new Sci-Fi/Fantasy releases. These days I mostly read old used paperbacks but I flashbacked to when I was younger and would constantly check out hardcover books from the library. I couldn't resist the shiny new mylar protective cover. Now this book is not actually a new release - it's been out for many years and was re-printed in 2014 - but it seems that my library just acquired it.

So I brought it home and finished the Colour of Magic a few days ago. This is the first Pratchett I've read. At first it brought to mind reading Douglas Adams and Piers Anthony (in the '80s) and Lawrence Watt-Evans (more recently), but that quickly faded. Overall I greatly enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading more Discworld stories. The parodies of the Lankmar, Grey Mouser/Fafhrd, Conan, Lovecraft, Dragonriders of Pern, etc were much fun. I loved the descriptions of the various parts of the world, particularly the Circumfence in the Close to the Edge section. I've already started on with the Light Fantastic.

There were two minor unsettling gaps in the narrative. The talking sword Kring that was controlling Rincewind - a great parody of Stormbringer and other magic swords - disappeared from the story right in the middle of a battle without a single further mention. Also, the sea troll Tethis returned at the end of the first novel but was never mentioned again at the beginning of the next one.

Thanks to T. Foster and others above for their discussion above the memory of which helped me to pick this up. I'm looking forward to progressing forward to the books that are even more highly regarded.

(cross-posted some of the above in a recent Pratchett thread at DF)