The Colour of Magic
Terry Pratchett's profoundly irreverent novels are consistent number one bestsellers in England, where they have garnered him a revered position in the halls of parody next to Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen.The Color of Magic is Terry Pratchett's maiden voyage through the now-legendary land of Discworld. This is where it all begins--with the tourist Twoflower and his wizard guide, Rincewind.
Stats for nerds
9recommend
44mentions
38people
2009–2026years
20% recommend70% neutral9% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- 20 years ago I read a The Guardian article about the "top geek novels". I immediately read a bunch of those.
Recently I managed to find the list again, and it's been endless pleasure:
- American Gods -- Neil Gaiman
- Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley
- The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett
- Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks
- Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson
- Cloud Atlas -- David Mitchell
- The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson
- The Dispossessed -- Ursula K Le Guin
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick
- Dune -- Frank Herbert
- Foundation -- Isaac Asimov
- Giles Goat-Boy -- John Barth
- Gravity's Rainbow -- Thomas Pynchon
- The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams
- I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov
- The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
- The Left Hand of Darkness -- Ursula K Le Guin
- The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick
- Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland
- Neuromancer -- William Gibson
- Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell
- Orlando -- Virgina Woolf
- The Shockwave Rider -- John Brunner
- Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson
- Stand on Zanzibar -- John Brunner
- Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein
- Trouble with lichen - John Wyndham
- UBIK -- Philip Dick
- Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
- Woman on the Edge of Time -- Marge Piercy
(I am creatively interpreting "The Colour of Magic" as "all Discworld", "Dune" as "the six Dune books", etc.)
- Hah, so different from my experience - when I was young I was looking more for traditional fantasy and did not enjoy a Discworld book I picked up.
Now that I am in my middle 40s I just got a couple of his books and I am enjoying the Colour of Magic so much right now, having a real blast!
- Just starting with the first book (The Colour of Magic) and continuing in release order is fine. No need to make things more complicated than that.
- Colour of Magic sets up the Disc, and how it works, after that you can do any of them.
Fundamentally do you like, wizards, witches, guards, death, or the chancer (moist Von lipwig) ?
I say this because the whole set is basically split up into those themes.
Personally, my favourite is Feet Of Clay.
However, if pinned down, I will always say, read them in the order they were published, as is true for all book sets.
- Mr P lived up the road from here and his family still does. (Wilts/Soms:UK)
Pratchett came very dangerously close to writing serious literature. He also managed to write some of the most profound commentary on religion that I have ever seen. Try Small Gods for a rather unsubtle start.
If you want to do Pratchett then start at the beginning and work out - that's my advice. I was about 15 when the Colour of Magic came out and now I'm 52ish. There is also absolutely nothing wrong with randomly diving in but why not start at the beginning - no matter how daft it looks now? I actually rather like the first two books - naiive? yes!
Everyone has a favourite book because he attacked so many themes with alacrity. I see loads of calls for "read Monstrous Regiment" here - and it is an absolute belter. It is a very polite and beautifully handled feminist treatise with a hefty nod to the bloody nonsense that is civilisation in Europe.
"Small Gods" is not polite in any way and nor is "Winter Smith" - both are quite searing indictments on religion.
Anyway, Sir TP wrote stuff and it is rather good. I'm an engineer and the railway related stuff hits home even though I trained as a Civ Eng and now do IT! I shudder to think what would have been written by a Sir TP who understood say Python. We got Ant Hill Inside and the College of Inadvisably Applied Magic - we got off very lightly.
- I know that I'm in minority, but could you tell me what do you find great about Hitchhiker's Guide? I find it ok-ish. It feels overly chaotic for me. Like it really tries to wave the idea of improbability at me and eventually shove it. Of course everything is exaggerated for comedic effects, but for me it's like it tries too hard. The result is very incoherent.
It reminds me of a few movies I enjoyed dearly when I was a kid. After a rewatch they seem like a bunch of good gags, that tell a miserable story. If I would judge the scenes by themselves, I would say they are nice. However if you put them in order, it seems forced to put a story together.
I had similar thoughts after reading Pratchett's The Colour of Magic. Though after I started reading The Light Fantastic it fell into place. I would say that those two books should be inseparable. Whatever happens in the first does not make sense until the second book. Now I can say that I enjoyed it more then Mort and Guards! Guards!, but at the moment it's all I read from Discworld, do maybe my opinion is yet to change. I wonder if it's the same with Hitchhiker's Guide. But I'm on 19th chapter of 4th book and although this one feels much better, whatever happens in previous three still does not make any sense.
I'll pass if you will tell me it should not make sense, that's figurative 'it' and I get it as it is. Because coherence is what makes a story for me.
