#terry practchett

Execution: ⭐⭐⭐

Enjoyment: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Link, Amazon Link Key Descriptors: Terry Pratchett, humor, satire, wizardry

Premise: Where the journey first began... four elephants on the back of a giant turtle with a flat, disc-shaped world on top of their backs. The great city of Ankh-Morpork. Truly, this is a classic. 

In any case, the actual premise: a naive, innocent tourist with a very protective set of Luggage (complete with teeth and a bloodthirsty demeanor) visits a large city full of rather brutish adventurers. Along the way, he engages a wizard who knows only a single spell (which can’t be uttered lest he inadvertently end the world as we know it) as his rather intrepid guide. Mayhem ensues.  

Review: While this is certainly not the strongest in the Discworld series, it’s impossible not to be fond of this very first novel. If you’re looking for an introduction to Discworld and Pratchett, I honestly wouldn’t recommend The Colour of Magic given that it’s not representative of the collection as a whole. It has some major plot/pacing flaws, albeit some delightful characters. If you’re just wanting to start with Discworld, I’d recommend either Guards! Guards!, Mort, or Equal Rites depending on if you’d prefer to read about some excellent city guardsmen, Death himself, or a group of witches. 

Twoflower is such a dear - he’s incredibly optimistic and practical, even in the face of near-death. His approach is that if you’re going to die, well, you’d best try to get a good photo out of the deal while you’re at it! Worrying, of course, won’t do a jot of good. 

“Don't you understand?" snarled Rincewind. "We are going over the Edge, godsdammit!" "Can't we do anything about it?" "No!" "Then I can't see the sense in panicking," said Twoflower calmly.”

And the Luggage... arguably the best character in the book, really. What’s not to love about a sea chest that doggishly follows its master, forces reluctant wizards to help on pain of a very crunchy, awful death, and trots around on a hundred tiny legs? The Luggage always shows up just in the nick of time. 

Let’s not forget Rincewind! Rincewind is a character who will show up throughout the Discworld books. He’s a somewhat cowardly wizard who would really just prefer to live a quiet life without any attention being paid to him at all. Alas, that’s not to be: the powers over Ankh-Morpork have decreed that if anything happens to Twoflower, it could cause a bit of a political crisis resulting in a sudden lack of a head for Rincewind. 

“Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant 'idiot'.” 

Twoflower is utterly determined to have a roaring adventure and meet some proper heroes and hasn’t the faintest concept of self-preservation. Thus does he end up kidnapped, in the bowels of a demon’s temple, and on the back of a somewhat imaginary dragon while breaking out of prison. 

I’m certain I said it correctly 

An unconventional assassin - @tangentqueenofdragons okay technically I was probably supposed to draw something kind of bizarre and zany but unconventional assassin is always going to take my mind right to Mr Teatime. Ask anyone in the assassin’s guild, there’s something very off about him. 

yes, those are teeth that he’s holding. Childrens’ teeth, to be exact. That’s also what those rows of cases are filled with. He stole them from the tooth fairy, as part of his plan to kill the Discworld equivalent of Santa Clause whom he as hired by the auditors to assassinate. The Hogfather is a really wild ride, I would suggest giving it a read some time. 

The Monstrous Regiment is a reference to a diatribe, “The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women”, published by John Knox in 1558, railing against female monarchs, since being ruled by women (obviously) goes against the Bible. 

(Don’t ask me anything about it, my whole acquaintance with it comes from this Wikipedia article, of which I read and paraphrased the first paragraph.)

I only found it because I wanted to know if this comment had an origin other than the Terry Pratchett novel, also called The Monstrous Regiment and FAR more worth reading than the Knox polemic, in which a young girl disguises herself as a boy in order to join the army and find her brother. Standard folk story, until bit by bit you discover that every single soldier in her regiment is also a girl disguised as a boy, for a variety of reasons. And then they kick ass.

There is nothing at all whatsoever in this world you can say to convince me that Moftiss were not referencing Sir Terry in this comment.

Also, Sherlock reads Terry Pratchett novels. They’re his secret pleasure. Buried deep...