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Vasja posted:I have the same feeling, and always recommend it to people as the first Discworld book that they should read. I've yet to meet someone who started with Nightwatch and hasn't started regularly reading Pratchett's work. Really? I'd disagree, Night Watch relies quite a bit on pre-established characterizations and history. You should know Ankh-Morpork's past, and Vetinari's history, for a lot of the plot. Guards! Guards! is a better starter for that. So is Mort or Small Gods, they both are good standalones for establishing the mythology.
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Sep 26, 2013 03:30
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I started with Night Watch and severely regret it. I didn't understand the characters and the meanings of the events to them at all, and didn't get the 'wow' moments.
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Sep 26, 2013 03:32
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Huh. I dunno. Something about that book, for me, was extremely compelling. While I'm certain I missed things by starting there, I don't think you need to catch all of the special moments to make it a fantastic read. Pratchett is very good at painting the characters and the universe they are in from any starting point. For me, at least, Nightwatch seems to be a great place to start 'in media res', of sorts.
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Sep 26, 2013 04:51
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It was the first Pratchett I ever read just because the premise intrigued me and I still consider it one of my favorites despite the fact I didn't know any of the Watch's preconceptions yet. I think it works just because it's a very unfamiliar Ankh-Morpork in comparison to the more modern one, so it can stand as its own self-contained story fairly well. I think Vimes was a fairly well-defined enough character that you did not need to know of all his previous stories, though it helps in giving a little more oomph to certain moments. My other favorites are Hogfather and Small Gods just because I really like them thematically.
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Sep 26, 2013 05:15
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Night Watch is probably his best book, but if I'm recommending someone start reading his stuff I generally offer up Small Gods, or Amazing Maurice if I think they'd prefer something a little lighter.
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Sep 26, 2013 06:59
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Skippy McPants posted:Night Watch is probably his best book, but if I'm recommending someone start reading his stuff I generally offer up Small Gods, or Amazing Maurice if I think they'd prefer something a little lighter. I just read Amazing Maurice and that is book is dark as hell!
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Sep 26, 2013 08:13
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Hedrigall posted:I just read Amazing Maurice and that is book is dark as hell! I mean light in the philisophical sense. Small Gods is my go to recommendation, but some people get turned off when they hear its about the nature of god(s) and faith. Amazing Maurice has dark moments, but it's still on the whole a fairly light hearted adventure story.
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Sep 26, 2013 08:50
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MikeJF posted:I started with Night Watch and severely regret it. I didn't understand the characters and the meanings of the events to them at all, and didn't get the 'wow' moments. I started with Night Watch and don't regret it at all. As a back-introduction to all of those characters it works extremely well, and I devoured it. I was given it as a Christmas gift and I'd reread it three times by New Years, trying to soak in everything I could. Then I went to the library and got every book they had from Pratchett and started absolutely devouring them. Night Watch is still my favorite Pratchett book, although there's a few that are in very close contention. I think it works as an introduction to the Discworld extremely well, and it works very well for established readers as well.
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Sep 26, 2013 08:58
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I started with The Colour of Magic and thought it was really dumb except for a couple of good ideas and one-off jokes. I didn't read any more Pratchett until years later when I picked up Night Watch, absolutely loved it, and continued to read through everything else.
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Sep 26, 2013 09:43
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Sniper Party posted:I started with The Colour of Magic and thought it was really dumb except for a couple of good ideas and one-off jokes. I didn't read any more Pratchett until years later when I picked up Night Watch, absolutely loved it, and continued to read through everything else. That's like playing Final Fantasy NES and hating the series until you later pick up Final Fantasy X and being amazed. Everyone hates Colour of Magic and everyone hates FF1, and these ARE the fans I'm talking about.
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Sep 26, 2013 12:10
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I read Going Postal first and really enjoyed it and then went back and read them all in order. I thought some were much better than others but even the ones that I didn't like that much were easy to get through.
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Sep 26, 2013 17:23
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I started with Color of Magic, found it fairly entertaining(granted, I was much much easier to impress back then), but ultimately I like the Death books the most, followed by Vimes, Moist, Tiffany and Witches, in that order. Never really 'got' the Wizards as much, though Rincewind was my favorite initially. Funny how tastes change.
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Sep 26, 2013 17:40
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veekie posted:I started with Color of Magic, found it fairly entertaining(granted, I was much much easier to impress back then), but ultimately I like the Death books the most, followed by Vimes, Moist, Tiffany and Witches, in that order. Never really 'got' the Wizards as much, though Rincewind was my favorite initially. You pretty much match my order of favourite recurring storylines although I would add death after Moist. The best standalone book for me was Small Gods and the worst was Pyramids. I also have a soft spot for the Bromiliad trilogy, not least because the first Pratchett I read Truckers
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Sep 26, 2013 19:05
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I started with TCOM because the only other option was reading The Light Fantastic first. It hasn't aged as well as some of the other early books, though.
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Sep 26, 2013 19:22
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Well, I started with Color of Magic because I randomly found it in a bookshop while browsing. Then I just plowed through the shelf. Blew so much lunch money back then on books.
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Sep 26, 2013 19:27
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I started with Hogfather, of all things, mainly because it was the first book I found in a store. In retrospect it was a terrible book to start with, but I "got" the backstory fairly quickly. I'd probably appreciate it more if I reread it now. I have yet to read TCOM, unfortunately.
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Sep 26, 2013 21:45
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I started with Men At Arms.
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Sep 26, 2013 21:47
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I started as a kid with colour of magic, didn't care for it much. Later on, I picked up Men at Arms and Guards Guards. Read the elucidated brotherhood prologue in GG and was hooked.
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Sep 26, 2013 22:15
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I started with Colour of Magic too. I enjoyed it well enough, thou didn't really get hooked until I read Hogfather, a couple of books later. Night Watch was the first Watch book I read, and it's still my favourite Discworld novel.
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Sep 26, 2013 23:12
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My friend and I first got into Pratchett when we found Soul Music. I guess I lucked out as all the other books after that were an improvement.
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Sep 26, 2013 23:39
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Usually for a Pratchett introduction I'll say either Guards, Guards! or Small Gods, depending on what the person is like.
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Sep 27, 2013 00:16
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tribbledirigible posted:My friend and I first got into Pratchett when we found Soul Music. I guess I lucked out as all the other books after that were an improvement. Soul Music is a great book if you understand all the music jokes. Everything is riffed on from Pete Frame's Rock Family Trees to The Day The Music Died, and spotting the references is half the fun.
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Sep 27, 2013 00:41
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When I first heard about Discworld I decided to read them all in order of release because I didn't know they were basically divided by characters so I read the first 4 books or so in order. The Colour of magic and The Light Fantastic I found to be average, Equal Rites I didn't really enjoy at all and Mort is basically what gave me hope for the rest of the series with how good it was. It wasn't until Guards! Guards! That I was totally hooked. I'm ashamed to admit I still haven't read most of the Lancre Witches books. I think Nightwatch is probably his best book but I feel like it loses a huge amount of its impact if you haven't read the prior Watch books. It's still good without them but it loses the whole Holy poo poo! moments that it had. InequalityGodzilla fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 00:45
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Feeble posted:When I first heard about Discworld I decided to read them all in order of release because I didn't know they were basically divided by characters so I read the first 4 books or so in order. The Colour of magic and The Light Fantastic I found to be average, Equal Rites I didn't really enjoy at all and Mort is basically what gave me hope for the rest of the series with how good it was. It wasn't until Guards! Guards! That I was totally hooked. I'm ashamed to admit I still haven't read most of the Lancre Witches books. You also need to have read Reaper Man to fully understand Reg Shoe.
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Sep 27, 2013 00:48
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I like the Color of Magic well enough, though I think I started with... Men at Arms? drat, it was a long time ago. I actually kinda like Pyramids and Moving Pictures. It's different to be sure, but it's better than Snuff-different. Well, that, and I kinda just really like Pyramids first half or so, and the climax is pretty entertaining in the way it draws together all the mashed up bits that were dragging the previous section down.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:09
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I started with Interesting Times, myself. I found myself in a study hall one day with nothing to study and the English teacher's bookshelf right next to me, so I browsed until I found a purple-and-orange one that caught my eye. Definitely has a special place in my heart, but if pressed I'd have to say Thud! or Witches Abroad was my specific favorite.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:34
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Mister Roboto posted:That's like playing Final Fantasy NES and hating the series until you later pick up Final Fantasy X and being amazed. Everyone hates Colour of Magic and everyone hates FF1, and these ARE the fans I'm talking about. How does it feel to be oh so very wrong. I started with TCOM, then proceeded to plow through all the Rincewind books, then backtracked and read the witches. I'm only now mostly caught up on the Watch and Death storylines. (What I'm saying is I don't hate TCOM. It's not a horrible starting point, and while it has it's faults it's not a terrible book. It has quite a few rather clever bits in it.) E: Probably my favorite current is The Fifth Elephant and Reaper Man. Just the atmosphere in those two is amazing.
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Sep 27, 2013 06:24
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Nobody else here started with Jingo? A friend of the family recommended the Discworld novels, so I grabbed a bunch the next time I was in the library, and that was the first one I cracked open. Then I think I jumped into Hogfather, and after that I ate through every single Discworld novel my library system had to offer.
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Sep 27, 2013 06:41
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My English teacher gave me Moving Pictures to read in school. I was 13 or 14 at the time and missed out most of the references and jokes because I was a 14 year old Finnish guy (I was fine on the language, that's why my teacher gave it to me, but the references were just whoosh). That meant I didn't really think much of Discworld. Then a few years later I found The Fifth Elephant and liked it a lot, but I didn't have any way to get more Discworld books in my little hick town. Then I got my hands on Thief of Time and read that. At this point my experience of Discworld had been so disparate and confusing that I didn't even give the series a second thought until a couple of years ago when I knuckled down and started reading the Watch series starting from Guards! Guards! I've finished that and the Lipwig line now (except Snuff), and I squeezed Small Gods in there somewhere, so I think I'm going for the Death books next. So I still have something like twenty novels left to read.
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Sep 27, 2013 09:52
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What's with all the Pyramids hate? I thought it was great. Enjoyed it as much as Guards! Guards! and Night Watch (but not as much as Going Postal). You Bastard is one of my favorite Pratchett inventions ever. All I can think of is that its set outside of Anhk-Morpork and that the plot threads are initially a bit baffling.
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Sep 27, 2013 19:22
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BananaNutkins posted:What's with all the Pyramids hate? I thought it was great. Enjoyed it as much as Guards! Guards! and Night Watch (but not as much as Going Postal). I think its because it does many of the same things as small gods but doesn't have the same philosophical punch and cultural resonence. I started with Colour of magic and Feet of Clay, though technically I got an abridged plot summary of wyrd sisters from a friend at primary school, which when I saw a bunch in my school library when I got to secondary, and decided to get the first one and the once that seemed most interesting I read men at arms after that. Guards Guards was one of the last books I caught up on (this was around 2001/2)
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Sep 27, 2013 19:47
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Hailfire posted:My favorite of Terry's books is Nation, something about the old guy at the end of the book gets the tears flowing. The line about 'that nice Richard Dawkins' falls a bit flat these days though.
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Sep 27, 2013 21:20
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Daktar posted:The line about 'that nice Richard Dawkins' falls a bit flat these days though. In a parallel universe where science advanced slightly faster, Dawkins was less of a jerk since he spent less time screaming and arguing.
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Sep 28, 2013 00:32
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BananaNutkins posted:
For me, You Bastard was probably the only bit of the book I enjoyed. Small Gods was just a cleverer piece of work and a great deal more thought provoking
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Sep 28, 2013 00:36
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Fideles posted:For me, You Bastard was probably the only bit of the book I enjoyed. British people also appreciate the Assassins Guild final exam a lot more, as it's a spoof of the UK driving test.
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Sep 28, 2013 01:13
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Jedit posted:British people also appreciate the Assassins Guild final exam a lot more, as it's a spoof of the UK driving test. I'm American and I thought it was funny as poo poo.
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Sep 28, 2013 02:24
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Jedit posted:Soul Music is a great book if you understand all the music jokes. Everything is riffed on from Pete Frame's Rock Family Trees to The Day The Music Died, and spotting the references is half the fun. My first, too, and rather than referencing music that I already knew, it made me listen to music that I didn't. Cheers, Terry.
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Sep 28, 2013 10:24
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Am I weird for just through-and-through liking Pyramids? I thought it was decent. Not the best, but nowhere near the worst.
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Sep 28, 2013 23:42
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I like it too. It has some rough patches but it still is pretty good.
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Sep 28, 2013 23:46
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thespaceinvader posted:Am I weird for just through-and-through liking Pyramids? I thought it was decent. Not the best, but nowhere near the worst. I liked it. The super-devout novice assassin sacrificing a goat in the dorm room was hilarious. I do think assassins that never actually kill anyone is a cop out though.
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Sep 28, 2013 23:47
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