you say you've never read any discworld books?

[rone]

This would be a good place to find out where to start.  The latest version (1.21) is missing "A Hat Full of Sky", which is the third book in the "Maurice"-"Wee Free Men" arc.  I am, of course, a huge Vimes fan, so i'd recommend the first row first.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

This reminds me that I've still never read "Small Gods."

I started with "The Color of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic," which of course were the first written and most unformed in style, but I found them pretty amusing nevertheless. After that I think I skipped to reading some of the Death books, "Mort" and "Reaper Man" and the rest; Death was the first character who really grabbed me. It was interesting to see Pratchett's style grow up; "Reaper Man" particularly bowled me over, that Pratchett allowed himself to put so much genuinely moving material in what was ostensibly a humor book. I've always thought of the Discworld series as progressing gradually from parody to satire, and maybe to some extent to out-and-out serious fantasy worldbuilding.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yep, exactly. "Night Watch" really blew me away. I'll have to get "Reaper Man" now.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Whoa, I think it just got revised!

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Whoa! It's like somebody traveled in time to alter history!

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Got to keep those prayer wheels spinning.

[jwgh]

I really recommend Small Gods and I think Feet of Clay also has some really ... I don't know ... big stuff going on.

[palecur.livejournal.com]

Those two are definitely my favorites, closely followed by Maskerade and Lords and Ladies because I'm a huge Esme/Gytha fag.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Many recommend Small Gods but i found it merely OK.

[doctroid.livejournal.com]

Vimes and Vetinari are, indeed, one of the great characters of modern literature.

All right, so they're two characters. But neither would be as mind-bogglingly excellent without the other.

I don't know why some books are tagged as "starter novels" and some aren't. Or maybe I do: it looks like a "starter novel" is defined as one that has no plot links, even minor ones, with a previously-written book. But some of those plot links are very minor; there's no reason you can't read e.g. Wee Free Men before Maurice; likewise just because you haven't read Moving Pictures doesn't mean you can't handle The Truth.^*

Personally I think The Truth is a fine place to start, but that's just me. (Anal me, who started with The Colour of Magic and read the series pretty much in order from there -- of course, there were only about eight or ten books in the series at the time.)

---

^* This whole comment was just an excuse to use that gag.

[dumplechan.livejournal.com]

Ooh, this gives me an excuse to go read (or re-read) the discworld books. Although the colored squares almost look like a discworld board game. "Kicked by the Luggage! Lose a Turn"

Now we just need something like this for Wodehouse...although with all the short stories and tenuous links, it'll probably look even more topologically improbable.

[palecur.livejournal.com]

Agh! Memory cascade! Now I have to troll project Gutenberg for Jeeves material.

[eviltofu.livejournal.com]

The first DW novel I read was 5th Elephant I think. Reading Feet of Clay was what made me like the entire series.

I'd probably be Nobes...

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

"Hogfather" is what got me going.

I can see you as Nobby, oh yeah.

[alfvaen]

What are the links between "Maurice" and "The Wee Free Men"? I almost considered "Maurice" a standalone, with only the vaguest of links to the rest of the series(a mention of Unseen University's rubbish heap). If it's part of the series, that means I have to renumber the last few...

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I think the only link is that they're part of his "young adult" series. I've actually not yet read WFM.

[taerowyn.livejournal.com]

I have a good friends who loves Good Omens...I thought that, like me, he'd come to it through both authors so one day I was talking about Discworld and he hadn't a clue. I was blown away that such a huge Omens fan didn't even know Discworld existed. I loaned him Small Gods ASAP and he is now devouring the books at a fairly rapid pace. I figured it's a nice stand alone that is heavy on the social commentary (which is my favorite aspect or the books) and is a good intro to the world. He's working throught the death series but I'm chomping at the bit to get him to the watch series as Vimes is my favorite as well. Besides, we're both journalists so he really needs to read Truth.