Ask Lemmy

Not that I'm an expert, but I did create /r/Discworld, so I got to see a lot of opinions.

There's a couple of main philosophies. The one I agree with less is reading "subseries". First of all, many books really imho cross thos lines anyway, so you're going to miss stuff...... but........ that's one option.

The thing is, Sir Pratchett himself wasn't so happy with his first coupld of books. The Colour of Magic is a bit different - he was writing as a parody of fantasy. But as he went along, things kinda took off and it became a thing.

Frankly, my advice: Just suck it up. Colour of Magic isn't bad. Commit to at least reading through Mort, which is IIRC the 4th novel.

If that makes you nervous, then choose one or more of the traditional starting ones: Mort, Small Gods, Guards! Guards!. If you read all three of those and like it, just go back to Colour of Magic and read in publication order. The world evolves as he writes and it's a better experience.

But if you get enthralled with the night watch over the witches or whatever, the google "Discworld reading guide" and you'll find it and can see the "subseries" and do as you please.

If you're anything like me, though, starting at around Mort and from then on....... I always read a novel when it came out and it was pretty good, but when I re-read it almost immediately, I noticed so many more things. That's how I fell in love with the books. They are not one-time reads.

I'm on around my eighth or so full readthrough of the entire series - on Making Money right now. I don't think everyone will do that many, but for me, almost all the books are old friends, and I still notice new little details.

His writing is so........ compact. So many scenes with more than one subtext going on. He often writes scenes with dialogue happening that's critical to the story, but something in the background that just adds to the world might be happening at the same time.

I think specifically where a couple of bumbling night watch are talking about something, but as they're sitting there, they're watching a man slowly paint the name of his boat on his boat, but instead of painting "PRIDE OF ANKH-MORPORK" he's painted "PRID", so they're talking back and forth, anticipating the painter noticing..... and at the end of the scene, he does. And it's just so.......... so human, so delightful. The novels truly taught me the beauty of humanity.

There is, however, probably no real wrong way to read them. Someone on r/discworld claimed to be reading them in literally reverse publication order and enjoying them. So that's probably valid. But I would say: publication order hands down. Or whatever way you'll actually go out and get started. :)