Okay so after hearing nothing about this mans writing, i've decided to pick up some stuff by him.
where should I start?
where should I start?
Terry Pratchett fans get in here!
- Thread starter Death_Korps_Kommissar
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The Color of Magic.
Hands down the BEST piece of fiction I have ever read. It's the start of an insanely funny/whacky series, but the first and second books stand alone by themselves, so you don't have to keep reading if you don't want to.
Seriously, if you want the BEST of Terry Pratchett, this is the book you need to read first.
Hands down the BEST piece of fiction I have ever read. It's the start of an insanely funny/whacky series, but the first and second books stand alone by themselves, so you don't have to keep reading if you don't want to.
Seriously, if you want the BEST of Terry Pratchett, this is the book you need to read first.
Why not start at the begining?Death_Korps_Kommissar said:
The Colour of Magic
Which leads directly in to:
The Light Fantastic
Just follow this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld#Bibliography
Start at Mort. His first few books are not that good, but once he got to Mort, it really started to pick up. Also, Pratchett is a great comedy writer, so you are in for a treat!
Uh don't start with Mort, the back story to it requires that you have at least read the first two books. As a few have said, read the books in order of release.
Start at the beginning. And when you get to the end ... stop. - March Hare
More to the point; my favorite book thus far is Going Postal.
More to the point; my favorite book thus far is Going Postal.
Wait ... WHAT? Color of Magic was HILARIOUS! In fact, there are only two books that didn't have me constantly chuckling; Eric and Night Watch. The former because it sucked. The latter because it was way to serious to be funny (but I highly recommend Night Watch).BreakfastMan said:
Start with 'Guards! Guards!' is the advice I always give, since it's the start of the Night Watch novels but is recent enough that it doesn't have the little issues that were at the beginning of the Discworld series.
It was good, but you can definitely see some problems with it compared to Pratchett's later work (the pacing for example, and a tendency for Deus Ex Machina).soulsabr said:
EDIT: Unnecessary double post, should have just edited my first post. My bad.
I love all the discworld novels but overall I'd say the ones about the city watch are my favourite! So my advice would be start with guards!guards! And follow that series, of which the next is men at arms 
I signed up just to post in this thread...
People are correct in saying you should read them in order, but I'd advise not in the exact order they're released, instead read in release order for each main character.
If you start with The Colour Of Magic you'll be reading about Wizards and Rincewind, then you'd go on to read everything with Wizards in it (or Rincewind) until you've finished there.
My personal favorite series, and a great place to start are the Guards (or Night Watch), then I'd recommend starting with Guards! Guards!, then men at Arms, followed by Feet Of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, Night Watch and Thud. This will get you introduced to a lot of pivotal characters and areas in Discworld, mainly the city of Ankh Morpork which features in a lot of the books, and will get you introduced to Sam Vimes, Lord Vetinari (also known as The Patrician) the guilds and basically how the world runs.
Knowing these people and places will make the whole Pratchett experience much more fun.
Hope that helps!
People are correct in saying you should read them in order, but I'd advise not in the exact order they're released, instead read in release order for each main character.
If you start with The Colour Of Magic you'll be reading about Wizards and Rincewind, then you'd go on to read everything with Wizards in it (or Rincewind) until you've finished there.
My personal favorite series, and a great place to start are the Guards (or Night Watch), then I'd recommend starting with Guards! Guards!, then men at Arms, followed by Feet Of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, Night Watch and Thud. This will get you introduced to a lot of pivotal characters and areas in Discworld, mainly the city of Ankh Morpork which features in a lot of the books, and will get you introduced to Sam Vimes, Lord Vetinari (also known as The Patrician) the guilds and basically how the world runs.
Knowing these people and places will make the whole Pratchett experience much more fun.
Hope that helps!
Gan ta any bookshop and spend some time reading the blurb, pick up the one that seems the most interesting to you.
Men at Arms is my favourite, followed by interesting times, mort then the last continent.
Men at Arms is my favourite, followed by interesting times, mort then the last continent.
It's best to start at the beginning: for that reason I recommend you read The Color of Magic, The Light Fantastic which are the first two books (which gives you a strong understanding of the world Pratchett has created and helps you understand certain aspects of later books) and they're also the beginning of the Rincewind story arc. They're not up to his current day standard but they're worthwhile - you can then continue the Rincewind story arc in Sourcery, Interesting Times and The Last Continent. There is also '(Faust) Eric', which I believe takes place between Sourcery and Interesting times but it's more of a spinoff story and not really considered part of discworld canon - inasmuch as the discworld series can be considered canonical.
My personal favourite books are the City Watch books: Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, Nightwatch and Thud!.
Before I started the City Watch books my favourites were death but I find them a bit clumsily written now. In order they are Mort, Reaper Man, Soul Music, The Hogfather and Thief of Time - though technically Thief of Time has more to do with Death's adopted granddaughter than Death himself.
I personally don't like the Witch related novels because I've tried Maskerade and Carpe Jugulum and never finished them - found them boring. The first book in the Witches story arc is Equal Rites (the third Discworld novel) which is the only one I like (coincidentally I'm re-reading it right now). The Witches are excellent characters when they turn up in other books, I just don't really enjoy those particular books.
There are also numerous standalone books. I haven't read Going Postal but the BBC mini-series they made was pretty awesome - I'd love to see them make more of the books into a live action series like this.
The Truth is quite good though I think Pratchett himself was a bit critical of the finished product because he included some of the members of the City Watch in the story and because they're so popular the story went off track somewhat.
As of late Pratchett has started writing more young-teen oriented books about a girl called Tiffany Aching. They're not badly written but if you're not a young teenager I'd skip over them, especially if you're already used to Pratchett's regular works.
My personal favourite books are the City Watch books: Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, Nightwatch and Thud!.
Before I started the City Watch books my favourites were death but I find them a bit clumsily written now. In order they are Mort, Reaper Man, Soul Music, The Hogfather and Thief of Time - though technically Thief of Time has more to do with Death's adopted granddaughter than Death himself.
I personally don't like the Witch related novels because I've tried Maskerade and Carpe Jugulum and never finished them - found them boring. The first book in the Witches story arc is Equal Rites (the third Discworld novel) which is the only one I like (coincidentally I'm re-reading it right now). The Witches are excellent characters when they turn up in other books, I just don't really enjoy those particular books.
There are also numerous standalone books. I haven't read Going Postal but the BBC mini-series they made was pretty awesome - I'd love to see them make more of the books into a live action series like this.
The Truth is quite good though I think Pratchett himself was a bit critical of the finished product because he included some of the members of the City Watch in the story and because they're so popular the story went off track somewhat.
As of late Pratchett has started writing more young-teen oriented books about a girl called Tiffany Aching. They're not badly written but if you're not a young teenager I'd skip over them, especially if you're already used to Pratchett's regular works.
-- don't worry too much with which book you pick up, they're all good and can stand alone, even if you ain't read preceeding ones.
I reckon that his latest stuff is his best, his writting seems to always improve from book to book, but his early stuff is still at a really high level.
if you can pick any book from all pratchett's stuff, then I'd recommend nightwatch, for no real reason other then it is one of my favorite.
enjoy!
I reckon that his latest stuff is his best, his writting seems to always improve from book to book, but his early stuff is still at a really high level.
if you can pick any book from all pratchett's stuff, then I'd recommend nightwatch, for no real reason other then it is one of my favorite.
enjoy!
I thought Theif of Time focused mainly on the History Monks and Lu-Tze, and was standalone like Moving Pictures and The Truth.Kermi said:
The witches books hold a different kind of appeal to me, they tell similar stories to one's that already exist. Maskerads is Phantom of the Opera, Wyrd Sisters is Hamlet and Carpe Jugulum is a retake on traditional vampires. I guess the important thing is, is that eash series inside discworld is it's on style of book. The Night Watch is a bit detective, Wizards are a bit slapstick and so on.Kermi said:
Pratchett has often stated it's very hard for him to place a story inside Ankh Morpork these days without having Sam Vimes or The Watch come into play as they're such a huge force in the city. I know Vimes has popped up in the Moist Von Lipwig stories and he also appeared in Unseen Academicals.Kermi said:
I think Night Watch is easily the best book he's ever written. I woudln't reccomend going ot it first as you'd know nothing and have no connection to Vimes. I can't wait for his next book, Snuff, which is apparently based around Vimes, which will be awesome, because he would have to be one of my favorite characters.King Crab said:
Yyyes, sort of. It's kind of a thrown together collaboration that I guess can serve as a standalone, but I tend to think of it as a Death/Susan story because it requires more knowledge of Death and his pst than it does about Lu-Tze and the History Monks - if you'd never read a story with Lu Tze before (I don't know how many there are - I've read Small Gods and of course he turned up in Night Watch) you can still appreciate Lu Tze's position in the story. Lobsang of course is a completely new character.SubstanceD said:
Maybe this is why those stories didn't appeal to me - I could give them another try now that I'm a bit older, but they simply didn't hold my interest 10-15 years ago.
I think this is the quote/paraphrasing I was looking for - the Watch just tend to dominate. How many books is Moist von Lipwig in? I only know the character from Going Postal.
2 so far, Going Postal was the first and Making Money the second, in which Moist is charged to take over the National Bank by Vetinari.Kermi said:
I got halfway through nation and stopped. Just didn't hold my attention well enough.linwolf said:
It's so sad that Pratchett has early onset Alzheimers and won't be able to write for much longer, his last book, Unseen Academicals, was largely dicatated. We may never see all of Vetinaris plans for Ankh Morpork, which apparently will be getting some kind of subway thanks to the dwavern machinery found in Thud!.
EDIT!: I forgot to mention the Science of Discworld books, all 3 are very well written and if you ever want to learn some hard science while laughing like a loon they're fantastic. You can read them at any time, but once again I advise reading them in order.
It is a shame that we probably won't see many more Discworld books - ultimately I'd like to see all the major players loose ends tied up. Maybe not the Watch, I'd be happy to see them carry on as is (though some people would prefer Carrot fulfilled his destiny, sorted out everything with Angua once and for all, etc.). I want to know where Rincewind is these days. I think Susan Sto Helit is pretty much wrapped up at the end of Thief of Time so I don't think we really need to see her again.SubstanceD said:
The main reason I want more Watch books is (not only because the Watch is awesome) because those are the ones where I like Vetinari - because Vimes isn't scared of him. He's kind of a bastard in Going Postal and The Truth for example because there's no one to stand up to him.
Rincewind is just a member of the faculty these days, he has 19 positions, along with his position of Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography at UU. He gets to sit in on their meetings, and his self-esteem is a getting better. He's also now a member of the Unseen Academicals football team. I'd say he's well wrapped up. He's finally living the boring life he wanted.Kermi said:
I think that Discworld is going to be impossible, but very easy, to wrap up. There's no end point, because there's no persisting story. But the world is so vibrant and full of character you can't ever imagine it dying.
Who knows, the end might be the Great A'Tuin reaching his final destination...