Why give them unique shapes in the legend and then proceed to NOT use them in the actual diagram? ,`:•|
Discworld
A community for all things related to the Discworld series of books by Sir Terry Pratchett.
I bow to your superior emoticon use :o
Lol I never noticed that
Because someone really dislikes colour blind people :P
It also seems the color for “young adult novel” isn’t used at all.
That's the purple.
I'm one of those heathens that read through for the first time in publication order. The ancient civilization side trips were a bit disorienting at first but I managed.
I’m considering that for my next read through.
I just finished The Last Continent next up is Carpe Jugulum
Ok but where do I start?
There's a lot of opinions on this. I found Small Gods to be a good jumping in place because it's a stand alone book and late enough that he had found the tone he wanted for the series. But a lot of other people recommend picking a subseries and starting with the first book there. The Vimes books are very popular so a lot of people recommend Guards, Guards as a starting point.
The reason a lot of people don't recommend publishing order is that the first two books are written in a very different style to the later ones. They're pretty straight parodies of heroic fantasy. But Pratchett becomes so much more later.
You can do whatever I think, either read them by series (rincewind, witches, city guard, etc.) or by publishing order, starting with the colour of magic.
Witches look self-contained. For the rest, pick a group and read up to before the series crossover, then proceed to the next series's starting book
Witches aren’t bad to start it’s where I did. But I recommend ending with Tiffany Aching. The shepherds crown wasn’t intended to be the final book, he was writing until he died and would’ve kept going if he could’ve, but it is the perfect final book.
I’d say start with Rincewind, Witches, or Death. City Watch is good too but it’ll hit you hard with Industrial Revolution stuff and is very much the story of the world progressing as people try to deal with it.
Mort
I was the weird one and started with The Color of Magic and didn't regret it. Weird Pratchett advised to skip 2 of his own books.
I think starting with Color of Magic is just fine, IF you know and enjoy classic heroic fantasy. Otherwise it's very hard to enjoy without understanding what tropes it's mocking.
They’re very different from the rest so it makes sense. IMO you’ve really got 4 eras: The first two, the era where he’s got an idea of what he wants but it’s still forming and being explored (pre industrial, lots of new stuff, characters change a lot as he explores them), his stride (longer series, less satirical, beginning to display his feelings on people as a whole), and then the embuggerance books (frustrated and powerful stories that leave very little of himself held back). They definitely bleed into each other, but there’s a reason Snuff feels a lot more like I Shall Wear Midnight in tone than it does to Guards Guards.
I think what he’s really saying is “don’t start with the books that came with an assumption that this was a one off parody, start where it’s being written as a series meant to evolve, then when you have a feel for it go read them”
Don't sleep on Small Gods, it's incredibly good.
That was the first one I read, and it got me hooked. Very good stand alone book with minimal references to the rest of the series.
my personal favorite after decades of dedicated fandom, and self-contained enough that it's one I recommend everyone start with.
Sir Terry Pratchett.
Did Pratchett really recommend starting with sourcery? I've been stumped for years on where to start
I think pterry was personally fond of Rincewind as a character, which may have influenced this recommendation.
I've kinda been wanting to get into the disc world books for awhile but fuck, this looks intimidating.
Meh, read 'em in order. I was all but done with the series when I saw posts like this.
You can read them any which way you like. I started with Hogfather because it sounded wild. If you go in order you catch more of the jokes and characters from the previous books.
The opposite. There's no need to read all of them. Each is self contained. So this amount just means you have a lot more to consume of you liked them
Not only is each self-contained, but I have found that each "sub-series"- if I can call them that- has a different vibe from the other, and are oftentimes entirely unrelated. So it's not like you're missing out on part of the story you were reading in Mort and Reaper Man by not reading a Rincewind book. Not many people actually read every book anyway.
I'm so confused.
Basically, while all of the novels take place in the discworld, different books in the series focus on different groups of characters, making it so that there are different subseries within the series. A lot of people choose to read the subseries in order instead of going through the books in publication order. This is also because the first two books, while not bad, have a very different tone from the later books. They're kind of straight parodies of heroic fantasy rather than being more focused on the unique setting and characters within the discworld.
So most people would recommend starting with one of the major subseries. The city watch books start with Guards Guards (this is probably the most popular subseries). The witches start with Equal Rites. Death starts with Mort. And Rincewind starts with The Color of Magic. Or you could pick one of the stand alone books to get a taste of Pratchett's style without continuity. Small Gods is probably the best choice for this IMO.
I appreciate your explanation and recommendation. Just wanted to second how incredibly confusing this guide is. According to you, starting with Small Gods is a good place. But in this "guide" that's the 8th row, 3rd column, and not colored as a starter book.
This guide seems more fit for someone who's already read the books, rather than being useful for someone looking as a place to start.
I agree that this guide isn't very easy to follow. It also seems to be attempting to show additional subseries like "industrial revolution", which is sort of an ongoing theme across different subseries but not necessarily something that stands on its own (I would consider Moving Pictures or The Truth more standalone books). Or the history monks that pop up in several scattered books but aren't exactly major characters for the most part. That said, there's not exactly a wrong place to start so long as you're willing to give the first few books a little leeway, somewhat like the first season of a longer TV show.
Don’t kill me but I finally started reading Discworld. I saw this image and after reading some posts I ended up reading Guards! Guards! It was great and can’t wait to read another
Does reading this count as reading one of the books
I asked Pratchett's ghost. He said it didn't matter.
I JUST bought the books on humble!
This is great.
This one?
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/terry-pratchetts-discworld-harpercollins-books
Sad it doesn't have quite all of them.
Hmm looks like it's just missing Raising Steam?
And it looks like it's through kobo.com? Do you just get the files or have to use their site/app?
Edit: looks like these books can only be downloaded as .ascm files. DRM-managed adobe files. Very lame.
Welp I just burned $18 as I'm absolutely not going to use Adobe Digital Editions or the Kobo app to read books. Humble's "Use on Any Device" is an absolute lie.
Humble gives you a code to use on kobo.com
Which isn't ideal, but for the price....
Me: fuck your reading order - I read "the fifth elephant" as my first book.
Mine was "Eric"
Funny how you made this post now. I decided to get into Discworld very recently and finished Mort just the day before.
I grabbed the humble book bundle a while ago, so this will be really useful. Thanks.
Edit: what category are the purple books?
Young Adult.
The Tiffany Aching books are a young adult subseries that spins off from the witches series. Very much worth reading even if you're not huge on YA stuff, especially since they essentially finish off the witches storyline.
Full version with bordering decor: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Discworld_Reading_Order_Guide_3.0.jpg