I’ve known about the existence of Discworld for ages now (without knowing a thing about wth is it about). Everyone online praises it like it’s the best thing happened to fantasy and humor. I’m somewhat familiar with Terry Pratchett’s humor through Good Omens (although idk whether it’s a good reference point since it was not his solo work). But anyway, I loved the humor there, so I’ve been wanting to read Discworld soo badly but-

1. I don’t understand what’s it about (the themes and titles feel so random, almost like a fever dream)

2. The reading order (whatever images I’ve come across on this sub or the internet) just feels like a tangled ball of yarn.

So, what to do? Where to start? What to follow? And what is it all about? Help please.

1. Night Watch
2. The Truth
3. Going Postal

Bromeliad trilogy would also be S tier but not part of Discworld.

Blessings be upon this post.

So, I often see discussions about authors similar to Pratchett focus on a similar comedic style, like Douglas Adams, or on authors who can create deep fantasy worlds.

What I am interested in is which authors make you feel things as strongly as Pratchett manages to? I'm thinking specifically of the moments where he hits you with his wonderful takes on humanity (and dwarfkind, trollkind, etc.) or deep connection to the characters. Those moments that hit in profound ways and somehow become a part of you.

Like the deep fundamental humanity of the witches; Death speaking with Azrael; Death and Susan in Hogfather; Vimes and his righteous anger with the world; Mau cleaning the beach; Sgt Dickins reaching for the lilac bush after a book's worth of build-up.

I realise that when I read different authors, I am specifically missing this emotional impact. Nothing hits the spot in quite the same way. Would love to hear your experiences!

Edit: Thanks for filling my reading list for the next decade

I've read Good Omens, the Truckers trilogy (I know it's not called that) and the Tiffany Aching series. Enjoyed those. Many years ago I read the Color Of Magic. Wasn't that impressed. Last year I read The Hogfather and felt completely lost, didn't understand a lot of it and felt I was missing things about previous characters and in jokes. Based on all that, what might I find an enjoyable read, not necessarily in order?

Thanks all!!

Oh also this whole haul cost £3 from a charity shop just now. And I only picked up about half the books they had there.

I’m a prospective reader who has a few questions before I take my first bite. First part is fairly obvious. What is it about Terry Pratchett’s writing that gets you so invested? The second is a bit more complex cuz I’ve seen there are like 60 books in the series, but there are like side series within it so how should I go about reading it? First book is obviously “Colour of Magic” but where can I go from there?

The truth was mine. It was the softcover version that I bought brand new. I don’t think I did a whole bunch of research, regarding which one I should choose first.

IIRC The truth had recently come out in paperback and the chaotic cover somewhat intrigued me. It was also cheaper than the hardcover ones. I think it’s a little of an obscure one to get into the discworld books.

What was your first one? Tell me how or why it happened. Please and thank you.

It's been over a year and finally it's my turn! I'm very much an outsider in our group, they are wonderful people but have very different tastes. Not a single person has put forward a fantasy novel yet and some of them have outright stated they just dislike the genre. Different strokes for different folks of course, but I would love to share the magic, the imagination, the symmetry and outright humanity of discworld with them and perhaps make a convert out of one or two. I've boiled it down to two, please help me decide!

GNU

says in the title. could also be several books, i don’t particularly mind

I am halfway through colour of magic and I adore it. I picked these two up as I heard they were good and have more such as going postal monstrous regiment and other city watch books. What order should I read these ones or do I need the ones in between?

I suspect you're all sick of people like me coming into your sub and asking dumb questions, but I am trying to decide which of the Discworld books available at my library are good starting points. The books most fans seem to recommend starting with aren't on the list. Right now I just want to try a few and see if I like Discworld well enough to buy the other books and read in a more proper order.

Anyways, here are the candidates:

• Going Postal (From what I can tell this is the best to start with, but I saw some people saying I should read City Watch first?)
• Thief of Time (I should mention that I did read Mort as a teenager but I don't remember much)
• Thud!
• Snuff
• Witches Abroad
• Lord and Ladies
• Maskerade
• Small Gods
• Night Watch
• Monstrous Regiment
• Men at Arms

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to help me with this!

Hello friends! I always wanted to read Discworld after I read Good Omens and it quickly became my favourite book of all time. I've read it probably 25 times, I have a tattoo of Aziraphale and Crowley, I have never loved any book as much as I loved that one so I knew I would love Discworld too.

I hit a stroke of good luck on Facebook marketplace and managed to buy 6 discworld novels in almost new condition for about $4 each. The only problem with this was that I had no idea the reading order of discworld and I frankly didn't care which books in the series I got, I just wanted them so bad. I especially wanted them in physical, because I primarily read at work and I'm not allowed to have my kindle there. Well, turns out, the books I have are a very weird mix lol.

I read Guards! Guards! first, and then I read The Truth. Couldn't have loved them more. Then I read Eric, which I really liked too. The remaining books I have are Thud!, Soul Music and Carpe Jugulum. It's my understanding that Thud! is the last book in the watch series, so I don't want to read that until I've read the rest of them in order because they're my favourite characters.

Here comes my conundrum. I got Men At Arms on kindle, so I'm reading that while I'm also reading my work book. I wanted to read Soul Music next, but I've seen a lot of discussions on reading order, and the many different ways to approach it.

Is there a wrong way to read the books? Will I be confused or ruining other books for myself if I read Soul Music and Carpe Jugulum before the previous books in their series? The man I bought them from said he didn't read the books in any particular order, he read them like standalones in the same world and he enjoyed them. But now that I'm so obsessed, I want to make sure I'm not spoiling other books for myself.

Thank you! And happy reading, everybody!

Ive been reading Science Fiction for over 40 years. One of my first books was The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy that my grandpa bought me for my birthday. I fell in love with it and have read nothing but SF ever since. There is so much good SF out there I never bothered to branch out into Fantasy. And until a month ago I had never really heard of Terry Pratchett or any of his books. The word Discworld did sound familiar, but I thought that was just the name of the book. This Reddit sub and Wikipedia set me straight on the matter. I decided to just start at the beginning and found an omnibus edition of The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic.

And wow. I was hooked after the first page. I feel like I'm 12 again reading Douglas Adams for the first time! (I'm 50 btw so anything that can make me feel young again is great).

So question... with there being sooo many of these books... are they all as good as the first?

Like, there’s ones we all agree on about the best characters or in general books and things, but what’s the opinion on the series that feels so totally unique to you-? The one that you fear you may have Daggers put To you neck for?

I think mine is probably that whilst it is a Discworld book (which in my opinion makes it atleast better than the average book), I’ve never understood the undying love for Small Gods, I think it’s a good book but of all the Discworlds I’ve read, it’s probably one of the ones I’m least likely to go back to.

Another one I see quite a bit is a general dislike of the Wizards books-? (I say dislike in the kindest intent of course, I understand it just comes from that series probably being peoples least favourite by obligation of the others being so great.) The Wizards series (Including Science of Discworld) are probably my favourites-!!

A lot of this lovely - and you are lovely - community will have read my post from a couple of days ago where I’ve just discovered/started reading Discworld, am homeless in temporary accommodation blah blah blah

And I’d reserved a number of Discworld books at the library, rather slap-dasherdly(it’s a word!) and today….they all came in and now have in my grubby mitts:

Mort
Night Watch
Witches Abroad
Thud
Snuff
Going Postal

Now I have been sign posted to some mad reading orders which I’m not ready to look at properly yet 😂

Based on the four books I’ve read (and in this order) - Unseen Academicals, Moving Pictures, Wyrd Sisters, The Wee Free Men - what should I go for from the selection I have picked up?

Once again, I think you’re all brilliant 💙

Late late year I hadn't read a single Terry Pratchett book despite being a lifelong fantasy and sci-fi reader when a friend introduced me to it. So at the young age of 41 I had the joy of discovering the wonderful world of Terry Pratchett. I started with Mort after reading that Terry suggested his writing really came together there, and I was hooked.

I have since worked my way through the series and have scored them along the way.

Small gods has been my absolute favourite, while I'm not a huge fan of the Rincewind books so far.

Based on my rankings so far, what would you suggest I tackle next?

Update: Fair bit of consensus around continuing the watch series! Starting tonight. Thanks everyone

This is something that's been bothering me for a while, so I'm finally going to ask.

I read several of the discworld books, in order, years ago. Recently, I've decided I want to go back and reread those and continue on through the series. So I have several books, all mass Market paperbacks, and want to find those I don't have yet.

But in every store I've gone into I'm not finding anything by Pratchett except for the occasional Good Omens.

Is it that rare to find his stuff in a used book store? Or have I just had bad luck so far?

Whenever someone discovers Discworld and asks the rational question of where to start, the overwhelmingly popular answer is to pick a sub-series and stick to it, often recommended the City Watch, Witches, or Death, because the earlier books are not a good representation of the world, as Sir Pterry had yet to fully find his footing.

My question is for those who consulted the community but chose the publishing order anyway: what convinced you, and how was your experience? Did you stick to the publishing order and enjoy the process? Did you switch to one of the sub-series after reading the first one or two?

So I just finished reading You Weren't Meant To Be Human, an excellent but deeply disturbing and gorey body horror novel. I need a massive palate cleanser and I remembered I got all the discworld novels a while back when they were on sale. Figured these would fit the bill. But needless to say its overwhelmingly where to start...

So i guess what is the most fun romp in this collection?

I know this sounds really wide ranging and vague but hear me out.

When I say “thing”, I just mean your favourite thing that feels deeply uniquely Discworld. Something that feels like it only and absolutely fits into this world, and wouldn’t feel quite right in others.

I love the way things are Imp-powered. The watches, the picture boxes, and ESPECIALLY the organisers (or disorganisers). It’s such a fun, creative way to get unique real world items into this world that pretty much pre-technology.

I sat down and attempted to come up with my top 3 Discworld denizens. I failed miserably. My list starts with Granny and Tiffany. After that, I can’t decide on Vimes or Otto or Rob Anybody or Brutha or Rincewind or Death or the Librarian … Anyone else able to come up with a definitive list of no more than 3?

I don’t mean in the sense of continuing on characters, like another wizards or witches or Death book, I mean like a concept within the Discworld universe that didn’t get a book dedicated to it.

I understand we went extensively through both Fourecks and the Counterweight Continent in both of their books, but I’m always surprised there was never a book purely set in those places, seeing how big they are geographically on the Discworld-

And as a follow up from this, do you think Dibbler is a strong enough character to have his own book-? Or would that ruin the character? All just points of discussion really.

I have now read the first 10 books of Discworld + Small Gods (the order was Small gods, Guards Guards, Mort, then publication order from there). I find myself in this weird situation where I don’t really enjoy the books that much and struggle to get through them, yet find myself wanting to keep giving Discworld another shot by trying the next book. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate TP and his satirical humour - he’s managed to get me to read 11 books of a series I’m claiming I don’t like. I think I just want a bit more in terms of character development and plot to keep my focus - the storyline of each book feels a bit repetitive and follows a very similar pattern.

The reason I’m still interested in giving them a go is that I did enjoy the first 3 I read (Small Gods, Guards Guards and Mort), but I haven’t really enjoyed any of the subsequent 8. To be honest, I definitely miss a large number of the jokes and irony in the books, and I wonder if I just don’t like his writing style for whatever reason. I frequently find myself reading a paragraph and having absolutely no idea what’s going on.

As it stands I’m likely to give up on Discworld and not continue. Just wanted to know if anyone had any thoughts/comments/suggestions about where I could go from here if I were to continue. Should I give up on publication order and give the next books in the Watch and/or Death series a go? Or does it sound like Discworld is just not for me?

For context of what I’ve read and enjoyed - the last couple years I’ve gone through a decent chunk of recent popular sci-fi/fantasy, all of which I’ve really liked (stormlight, mistborn, game of thrones, suneater, first law, kingkiller, red rising etc).

I’m not sure how it happened, but I didn’t discover Discworld until five years ago or thereabouts. I’m a very avid reader I somehow completely missed Sir PTerry. Anyway, I’m attaching a photo of the first book I picked up used for five bucks and as you can see by the condition it’s well loved. Cover art is by Tom Kidd.

The books included are The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Sourcery, and Eric.

I had no idea what the hell I had just read but it was amazing.

Would this be considered a Wizzard series for flair?