The Colour of Magic (Discworld 1)
Aug. 16th, 2021 07:25 pmLast things first: the only reason this does not end on a literal cliffhanger is that Rincewind loses his grip and falls off the world and THEN it ends.
So that's obnoxious. Luckily I have The Light Fantastic ready to hand.
This book is divided into four parts: a Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser pastiche; a Conan pastiche; a Pern pastiche; and one I don't recognise, about magical engineering. (I'm tempted to say "Recluce" but I haven't read any of those, nor do I know anything about them other than "magical engineering" and "thick paperbacks with Darrell K. Sweet covers".) Tying these episodes together are the hapless "wizard" Rincewind, the tourist Twoflower, and Twoflower's animate, sentient, homicidal Luggage.
There's a framing story of the Discworld gods playing a game that feels more akin to Magic Realm than Chess. Which makes sense to me: only a game of such complexity would hold their attention, and only divine beings could fully comprehend the enormity of the rules of Magic Realm. Honestly, the Lady may be my favourite part of the book.
Look, the book is mostly a send-up of other fantasy books. It does a fine job of doing that, and it's by no means a bad book, but ... it's slight. Pratchett doesn't put a whole lot of work into character development. Everyone gets a couple of traits: Twoflower oblivious and exploration-hungry, Rincewind cowardly and carrying around a mega-powerful spell in his head that prevents him from doing any other magic, etc etc. Nobody really gets developed beyond what's necessary for the scene to work.
The explicit Discworld world-building comes off weird to me as well. Death is just so petty in his pursuit of Rincewind. The as-yet-nameless Patrician shows very little sign of being a powerful behind-the-scenes manipulator; he's just a cruel tyrant. I don't know whether Ankh-Morpork feels like itself or not, since it burns down in the first story and doesn't recur. Weird.
And yet. The whole Discworld concept, and the bits of history and other background worldbuilding that Pratchett gives us, provide glimpses of the depth that I expect to come. And while the prose is mostly serviceable-funny, there's still occasional bits of what I think of as fundamentally Pratchettian ... wisdom, maybe.
Next up: The Light Fantastic. More Rincewind and (I assume) Twoflower and the Luggage. I wonder if it will be more parodies or turn into its own thing.
So that's obnoxious. Luckily I have The Light Fantastic ready to hand.
This book is divided into four parts: a Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser pastiche; a Conan pastiche; a Pern pastiche; and one I don't recognise, about magical engineering. (I'm tempted to say "Recluce" but I haven't read any of those, nor do I know anything about them other than "magical engineering" and "thick paperbacks with Darrell K. Sweet covers".) Tying these episodes together are the hapless "wizard" Rincewind, the tourist Twoflower, and Twoflower's animate, sentient, homicidal Luggage.
There's a framing story of the Discworld gods playing a game that feels more akin to Magic Realm than Chess. Which makes sense to me: only a game of such complexity would hold their attention, and only divine beings could fully comprehend the enormity of the rules of Magic Realm. Honestly, the Lady may be my favourite part of the book.
Look, the book is mostly a send-up of other fantasy books. It does a fine job of doing that, and it's by no means a bad book, but ... it's slight. Pratchett doesn't put a whole lot of work into character development. Everyone gets a couple of traits: Twoflower oblivious and exploration-hungry, Rincewind cowardly and carrying around a mega-powerful spell in his head that prevents him from doing any other magic, etc etc. Nobody really gets developed beyond what's necessary for the scene to work.
The explicit Discworld world-building comes off weird to me as well. Death is just so petty in his pursuit of Rincewind. The as-yet-nameless Patrician shows very little sign of being a powerful behind-the-scenes manipulator; he's just a cruel tyrant. I don't know whether Ankh-Morpork feels like itself or not, since it burns down in the first story and doesn't recur. Weird.
And yet. The whole Discworld concept, and the bits of history and other background worldbuilding that Pratchett gives us, provide glimpses of the depth that I expect to come. And while the prose is mostly serviceable-funny, there's still occasional bits of what I think of as fundamentally Pratchettian ... wisdom, maybe.
"We don't have gods where I come from, " said Twoflower.That kind of thing. That, I think, is why people read Pratchett? It's certainly part of why I do.
"You do, you know," said the Lady. "Everyone has gods. You just don't think they're gods."
Next up: The Light Fantastic. More Rincewind and (I assume) Twoflower and the Luggage. I wonder if it will be more parodies or turn into its own thing.