[Gorefest]

Just start with the Colour of Magic. That and the Light Fantastic definitely aren't his best works, but they are the first books of the Discworld series and I feel you should always start at the beginning.

If you prefer just dipping your toe in without need for massive intro, you could start with Mort or Pyramids or Interesting Times, they mostly have stand-alone characters in the Discworld that do not require previous knowledge of the world, but are a bit more coherent in writing and scope.

[Illuyankas]

The first two are very different from what it evolves into, so if you're not digging those at first try the start of one of the sequences, the the Watch books, or one of the standalone ones. I think you would get a kick out of Small Gods, and then the Watch sequence from Guards! Guards!

[Gust Hubb]

Non-disc world: Good Omens.

[Gorefest]

Good Omens is awesome. Co-written with Neil Gaiman.

[Tiste Simeon]

This is my list of Pratchett novels on my Kindle. I guess I could start from 1 and go on, now I realise I have them written in this order!

I think I also have Good Omens

Attached File(s)

•  Pratchett.png (28.95K)
  Number of downloads: 0

[Egwene]

I have read most of the Discworld books but not keen on the first one. By all means, try, but if you can't get into it then don't give up but try another instead.

Check out this old amazon discussion thread... lots of thoughts on where to start!

http://www.amazon.co...Mx2W5OU24SAKWOE

[Andorion]

Colour of Magic and Liight Fantastic was just Terry having fun I think. For a starter, Pyramids, Moving Pictures, Equal Rites or Guards Guards. Small Gods can be a bit heavy.

[D'rek]

@Tiste, this might be handy:

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

^ That's what I used when planning my read orders. Heartily recommend.

Also, Scott Lynch posted a pretty nice essay about Terry and his legacy:

Quote

I was surprised by my own mild reaction when I woke today and saw the first of many subtle tweets about Terry, though I guessed immediately what they meant. I was surprised by just how many of those tweets were also some flavor of subtle or mild or restrained. I didn’t see many all-caps primal screams or 140-character duets for Emoji and exclamation point.

Of course, I peer out at the universe through a knothole as tiny as anyone else’s and the plural of “Twitter stream anecdote” is surely not “data,” nor even a distant relation to data, nor even a part-time and barely convincing cosplay of data.

And yet I think there’s something natural and inevitable about this quiet reaction. It’s not merely that we’ve all known for some time that Terry had to be passing soon, that we’ve been forced to think about it, that he had the chance to say so much about it.

When some people die, they leave the rest of us with a sense that they’ve packed their words and warmth and hauled them along like luggage for the trip, that we can never hear from them again. Terry gave us so much of himself, though, so damned MUCH– seventy books, just for starters, and a world and its inhabitants that might as well be a religion for millions. A good religion, a useful religion. The sort where there’s always a little golden light flickering behind one of the church windows at any hour of the night, so you know there’s someone there to talk to you about anything, and they won’t have locked the doors. They won’t even have put locks on the doors. Some asshole suggested putting locks on the doors once, many years ago, and everyone else in the church carried that person out of town and threw them into a pond. That’s a Terry Pratchett sort of church. That’s a Terry Pratchett book. And he walled us in with them. He stacked them high all around us, and they’re all him, they’re all still here, and they’re going to be here so very long after you and I and everyone else reading this have gone off for a last walk WITH THE ONLY PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE WHO SPEAKS NATURALLY IN ALL CAPS AND WE DON’T REALLY MIND AT ALL, IT’S JUST THE WAY THINGS HAVE TO BE.

Terry Pratchett can die, and fuck everything for that sentence. Fuck those four words. I am feeling the cracks starting to appear in me now. I’ve lost the mildness and quiet I had this morning. But here’s the point. Terry Pratchett can die, but he can never go away.

Any hapless twit with sufficient fortitude of ass and typing fingers can leave a pile of books to the world, but too many of those books will be disconnected and unrevealing. Too many of those writers will leave nothing but layers of affect and encipherment between themselves and the reader. Terry didn’t leave us anything (despite the obvious depth and subtlety of his work) that needs Bletchley Park to decode. Terry wrote himself… Terry’s books are Terry. They are full of his everything. All his keen wonderment, all his flaying sarcasm, all his brimming love for the cracked vessels we are as individuals and as a whole.

Sixty-six is a good span of years, but Terry Pratchett was walking proof that we can have a world and a society where sixty-six is too young to go, too impossibly unfairly fucking young by far. All around us, people are trying to destroy the very possibility of that world. Some of them work with machine guns and some of them work with balance sheets, but Terry Pratchett was visible evidence that they all have to be mocked and scorned and hunted and fought. There can’t be Terry Pratchetts in the world they intend for the rest of us, which is proof enough that their world is a pile of shit.

So even though there are things now rolling down my cheeks as I write this, I think my initial reaction was inevitable. What he gave us was just so big, so rich, and so real. It’s hard to feel a chill when none of the warmth has vanished.

Goodbye, Terry.

You’re not really going anywhere, you know.

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 13 March 2015 - 08:05 PM

[polishgenius]

Very sad news. His books are genuinely a part of the tapestry of my life.


Definitely don't start with the first two. I know more than a few people who did that and were put off, as he's essentially trying to do Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but with fantasy, and it's not his strength and not nearly as good as that series.

My personal start was Reaper Man. It's not the first book in the Death sequence but it has no debt whatsoever to Mort so it's as good a place as any, and I like it more than Mort.

Small Gods and Guards! Guards! are probably the two most commonly recommended starting points though; Small Gods as a very strong standalone, Guards Guards as the start of the City Watch sequence, which is usually considered the best of the subsets.

[amphibian]

I don't understand people who say Good Omens is his best work, when it's very clearly Night Watch or Thud!.

[polishgenius]

Night Watch, Nation, and Hat Full of Sky are his best three for me.


Good Omens is great, though.

[Illuyankas]

Thud! is probably the earliest point you can recognise the signs of what Unseen Academicals and then explicitly Snuff and Raising Steam make painfully obvious, the state of his condition. It's only very slight in Thud! though, and apart from the Angua/Sally/'dance'club scenes is a great book. Night Watch is inarguably fantastic though.

Besides, you're forgetting Nation.

(e: to worry, damn you PG)

This post has been edited by Illuyankas: 13 March 2015 - 08:53 PM

[amphibian]

I own Nation and regularly tell people to read it - however, I believe it isn't quite able to reach the heights the others do because it doesn't have 15+ previous books building up characters and emotional resonance.

Thud! gets major points for being a well done book about a parent's love and about the love good leaders have for their frequently misbehaving populace. It's very rare for comedic/satirical books to shift that gear and he did it brilliantly.

Yes, the later books were profoundly affected by the Alzheimer's - especially when he essentially ditched the redrafting stages. The jokes that would normally be polished into absolutely stunning gems were more like geodes cracked open haphazardly. They were still well aimed jokes, even if the punching power was diminished.

Sir Pterry cared about making the world a better place. The Tiffany Aching books and Nation are strong signs of that. He didn't have to write those books, but he did because they were in him and they spoke to people that he wasn't normally reaching.

[worry]

Some dork on The AV Club wrote an article suggesting that while TP might have started out as the Douglas Adams of fantasy, he developed into the Vonnegut of fantasy. That's an intriguing thought. Definitely planning to at least read a couple Discworld books this year now. I'll go for published order, I don't mind hokey jokes to start off with.

[Andorion]

I actually love Thud! Its in my top 5 Discworld books. What Thud did show though, was the increasing levels of darkness in the books. Carpe Jugulum fo r instance was very dark.

Excellent chart posted upthread by D'rek. But I don't understand at all the categorisation of the Tiffany Aching books as kids books. They deal with some pretty serious themes,

For me the major indication that Terry was not doing so well was Making Money. Unseen Academicals really pointed it out. Snuff for me was an improvement over Academicals, but maybe thats just because I blindly love Vimes as a Discworld character.

Terry's illness and death left one major Discworld theme unfinished and that is the goblins. He had basically resolved the Troll/Dwarf issues and I really wanted to see where he would take the Goblins.

Nation is in a level all of its own. After finishing that book I just lay back quietly for an hour or so, just thinking. One of the most fantastic books I have ever been privileged to read.

[Andorion]

OK, according to the BBC we will get one more Discworld novel The Shepherds Crown, which Terry apparently finished last year.

[polishgenius]

Andorion, on 14 March 2015 - 01:46 AM, said:

Excellent chart posted upthread by D'rek. But I don't understand at all the categorisation of the Tiffany Aching books as kids books. They deal with some pretty serious themes,

Can kid's books not deal with serious themes? They're very definitely written for children (well, 'young adults'). Nation too.

[Cedz]

A sad day indeed. Rest in piece Mr Pratchett, you will be sorely missed.

[worry]

http://thoughtcatalo...-from-escapism/