I’ve been reading some of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett again recently. It had been close to 3 years since I’d read one, Night Watch I think it was. Although I did read the first book The Colour of Magic first, I’ve pretty much read them here and there since. Being a fan of police procedurals of apparently any sort I had ended out reading the “city watch” sub-series of books more or less in order somehow but it’s gone every which way otherwise. Like reading Eric before Sourcery and Thud! before about 1/4 of any of the others etc.

The thing I have to say about that is that Terry Pratchett is a lot better now than about 30 years ago (which is how it should be, unlike Ursula K. Le Guin who just gets worse and worse) so it’s hard to get enthused about reading his older books compared to the newer ones. There is a certain merit to all of the books, and recaps and explanations are blessedly sparse (otherwise almost all the books would be 50-100 pages longer just repeating the same things) so it helps to know what’s going on if you start with the first book, but do as you like.

Just as a matter of personal interest I was introduced to the series by an asexual physicist of all people who I was casually acquainted with. It seems to be not terribly uncommon that the types you’d least expect would be into fantasy as a genre enjoy things like Cthulu and Discworld. In fact someone into both in the first place seems strange enough.

If you want to get information on the Discworld books you can go almost anywhere else, I think all you need to know is that they’re satirical high fantasy and there’s no limit to what they parody while not neglecting to visit a subversive moral lesson like “be careful what you wish for” (Eric). Some of the books are also more socially relevant than others, perhaps in unexpected ways. I personally would say that Discworld is the right type of fantasy in that, metaphors aside, it’s totally separate from our world.

The writing in the Discworld, or should I say Pratchett’s writing, might in fact be genius. Some bits are questionable, and if these stories were anything else but satirical fantasy they would not work and I’d have to pick apart every inch of the way, but for what they are the writing works very well. Which is probably part of the reason that the books have sold tens of millions of copies worldwide.  There is usually a reason for high sales, I’m just glad that for once that reason is clever writing. As opposed to say, whatever the hell the reason is (religious pandering, touchy feely crap) that Paulo Coelho has allegedly sold over 100 million books (hearing that makes me sick, every time I hear how many books of his have sold the number is exponentially higher, and they’re all terribly written).

So in the end I’d say to check out the Discworld books if you’re looking for something amusing, are a general fantasy novel fan, and maybe are tired of overly pompous and pretentious works like A Song of Ice and Fire and could use a break. I’d say the books make for some pretty light reading over all as well, especially the earlier ones (I think I read Eric in little more than 2 hours today) if that’s something you’re looking for. Say if you’re attempting the 50 or 100 or whatever book challenge (that is, you try and read a certain number of books, I suppose for some people reading 10 books in a year would be a big thing although I personally read more than that the first month of the year). I might be on track for 100 books this year. Then again that’s what I thought last year before I barely made 50 on the last day of the year so whatever. Well giving the matter some thought, my conclusion was that I probably would not be able to read more books in a year than there are days and have them be of any respectable average length. This is mostly because after a certain amount of anything, no matter what it is, I grow weary of it. My tolerance is apparently much greater than other people, such as reading two books in a day and not doing much else, or watching an entire anime series subsequently, but even I have my limits. And your limits are good to know. Oh yeah

  • Wyrd Sisters: OK, I had a few moments of prolonged laughter but some parts were confused and questionable which I’d say is almost a hallmark of the early 80s Pratchett novels.
  •  Eric: pretty amusing, although I read the version sans illustrations which was below ideal.
  • Thud!: Deeper than I might have expected and appreciably more interesting and less amusing than a lot of the earlier Discworld novels (this one is from just a few years ago).