New to Disc World

[rosierad]

Hi I'm new to The Disc World series of books. Do they need to be read in order of pulication or are they individual stories in their own right.

[Jan Van Quirm]

Not the first time this question has been asked rosierad.

It doesn't really matter too much which book you read first as most of them read perfectly well on their own and some are 'stand alone' anyway in that they don't 'belong' with any serial book (there are 4 main 'serial's' running through Discworld). On the other hand reading them in order of publication is as good a route as any.

More on the serials -

The Wizards - start with The Colour of Magic which is the 1st DW book anyway
The Witches They sort of start with Equal Rites (which is also a wizard book) or 'officially' with Wyrd Sisters
Death - He's in all of them just about but Mort was the 1st he starred in
The Watch - Guards! Guards!
Prepare to laugh loads - and sometimes cry too

PS edit - There are other serials but those are the 'classic' ones. The others will be in to tell you about the rest very shortly and be of more help than me 'cos I haven't read all the later serials so can't really comment well enough

[Tonyblack]

I agree with Jan. It doesn't matter too much what order you read then. The important thing is that you DO read them.

And then post here and tell us what you thought.

Welcome to the site.

[silverstreak]

Hi and welcome to the site Rosierad.

Jan has given you a good synopsis of the themed novels,although any
of them can be read as an individual novel.There is also a stand alone
novel called The Truth,hero-William de Worde which is very good in my
opinion.Also there is a book called Going Postal,hero-Moist von Lipwig,
there is a second book with Moist but it's not as good as the first book.

If you fancy a non Discworld book Pterry has written in collaboration with
Neil Gaiman a brilliant book called Good Omens,well worth a read.

Have fun with the sainted Pterry.

[chris.ph]

i personally think you should start at the beginning so you can see the characters evolve as the novels progress

[Tiffany]

Hi Rosierad, welcome to the forum.
I agree with Chris. If you haven't read any at all, start with the first The Colour Of Magic, that way you can follow the plots from the begining. Even if you have seen the T.V. adaptation of the book.

[Ezekiel000]

http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-ord ... de-1-5.jpg

Try that.

[Ogg]

I consider 'Small Gods' a good starting point. We all take it for granted now but I have to confess that I didn't quite get the books when I first began. It took me until the second read to fully appreciate 'Reaper Man' back in the day.
I honesty believe one must possess a certain intellect or indeed a skewed sense of humour/sarcasm/self deprecation to fully appreciate the books...

[Tonyblack]

I consider 'Small Gods' a good starting point. We all take it for granted now but I have to confess that I didn't quite get the books when I first began. It took me until the second read to fully appreciate 'Reaper Man' back in the day.
I honesty believe one must possess a certain intellect or indeed a skewed sense of humour/sarcasm/self deprecation to fully appreciate the books...

I agree. I also didn't always 'get' the books on the first reading. There are layers to Terry's books that aren't always obvious on the first reading.

[Nienna]

I started with The Fifth Elephant when someone gave it to me in the library in school and told me to shut up and read 'cause I was making too much noise.

I absolutely loved it so then went back to the very beginning and read The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, but to be honest I actually wouldn't recommend starting with these ones because they aren't the best (but still pretty damn good!) so you wouldn't see Terry's full potential. I hear a lot of people saying Small Gods is a good start, even though I haven't read it (but it's next in the list after a bit of Charlotte Bronte and Stendhal o_o) and Witches Abroad won our forum vote of best book, so I'd say those!

[sgt-Angua]

I started with the Light Fantastic and then read them rather erratically until small gods... after which I usually read them as soon as I can get my hands on them ! but when I got my dad hooked on them he started on Mort and has read his way through the mini series and standalones so not in any particular order..... he's now nearly through all of them and keeps asking me when the next book is due out

[DaveC]

i personally think you should start at the beginning so you can see the characters evolve as the novels progress

Ditto

Because evn though it took me a long time to get through those two I appreciate starting there.

[The Mad Collector]

I always recommend starting with Mort as the characters in the first three just change too much when we meet them again and the Death characterisation in CoM and LF is nothing like the Death we all know. The books flow better when Terry wasn't trying so hard to write parodies of Edgar Rice Burroughs and started writing in his own style.

[Sjoerd3000]

I agree, Mort is a good place to start

[Turtles4Ever]

I'd also recommend Mort as a good, humorous starting point, but if you'd like to start with one of the more 'serious' and thought provoking Discworld book then Small Gods is a good starting point.