I have been reading through the Discworld books in publication order, and they have been downright delightful.

I have only finished the first eleven, but thus far all of them have been fun and most of them have little nuggets of wisdom that really do invite thought into a deeper theme. Thus far my favorite has been Mort, but I also ended up really liking Sourcery as well.

I hadn’t read any Pratchett while he was still alive, I hadn’t even heard of him in fact, but given how prolific he was and the level of cleverness in his stories, I wish he was still alive.

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jemmyw 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

I wish he was still alive too, but I think the books had come to an end, at least the mainline ones. The problem was he started taking it in a very Victorian direction and I felt like it lost the dark grittiness the earlier books had. He was at his best when riffing off others, Shakespeare and Tolkien and the other influences that were, again, a bigger part of the earlier books.

I think it was Going Postal or Monstrous Regiment where I thought to myself I don't look forward to these the same anymore. Before then I would read a new Discworld in one sitting. However, when I look back it was the Truth (book 25) where I felt the direction went off for me, even though I continued to enjoy them. I mean, 25 incredibly funny books is an amazing and wonderful thing anyway (I think Thief of Time 26 was very good).

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Insanity 5 days ago | parent [-]

I haven’t read Discworld. Although funnily enough I worked in a team where our services were named after Discworld characters, so I’m aware of _some_ lore lol.

That said.. it’s kind of daunting to start a series with so many books, and I consider myself a prolific reader (~30-40 books per year).

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mapontosevenths 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

They are very short books, and written at about a 6-8th grade reading level. As a prolific reader you could churn through them in a year or less. It's not unusual for me to read one in a single sitting, but I am a very quick reader. Regardless, I would instead recommend savoring them a bit rather than trying to read the entire series at once and making yourself crazy.

They generally don't build on each other or require that you have read the prior books, so if you put them down for a few years and come back you won't be too lost.

	▲	Insanity 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Ah that’s good to know. Yeah I frankly haven’t looked into them. Might have to give them a shot ;)

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tombert 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have been unemployed for a few months and there’s only so much YouTube I can take between interviews, so in my particular case the large volume of work actually served in its favor.

I needed something that would entertain me for very long periods of time, and I had bought the Discworld Humble Bundle about a year ago.

I have only finished the first eleven books, but with the exception of the first two, the books are more or less self-contained so you can read them in pretty much any order.

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jemmyw 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The problem with starting is that the very early books aren't that well written. They're funny and imaginative and great stories, but the actual text is a bit difficult. I found this out when reading them out loud to my oldest who was a bit slow to reading (fine now).

	▲	throwanem 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The recommendation I've had and am happy to pass along is to begin with Guards! Guards!, which is the first novel where it really becomes evident what Pratchett has to say now he's gotten all the juvenilia out of the way and set to work in earnest. The series is certainly worth the trouble, though possibly not if you approach it with the expectation of being graded.
	▲	tombert 5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I started in publication order, and while I agree the writing is not as refined in Colour of Magic, it does at least lay the groundwork for some of the overarching themes of the series. I actually thought Light Fantastic did a pretty good job wrapping up Colour of Magic, though I would probably tell people to start with Mort.

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tristramb 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I used to avoid the Discworld books because the first one I listened to as an audiobook had too many squeaky-voiced characters in it. But a few years later I read Mort and really liked it (might be something to do with the father-daughter relationship in it). Since then I have read a couple of the others.

	▲	tombert 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		SPOILERS FOR MORT BELOW: To me, what made Mort so good is the coming of age aspects of it, both for Mort and Death. Death is having a bit of an existential crisis and trying to figure out what being a human actually is, and the main issue of the story is teenage Mort being unwilling to accept the unfairness of the world and as a result saves the princess who was slated to die. The genius part to me is when, at the end, when Death and Mort are fighting, upon seeing Mort’s willingness to die for something he believes in, Death finally realizes the most important part of being a human: compassion, and he ultimately redeems himself and achieves some level of humanity by deciding to spare Mort purely out of compassion. To me it ended the story so perfectly; it was an ending that felt earned and ultimately felt very in tune with the themes that the book (and Discworld as a whole). Thus far what I have liked about the series has ultimately been a rejection of cynicism. The heroes of the story become heroes almost entirely out of their willingness to believe in something.