[ SECRET POST #5563 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5563 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 17 secrets from Secret Submission Post #797.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[meadowphoenix]

I remember loving this book but I also can only barely remember the main character, soooo what's the deal on why people don't like it?

[(Anonymous)]

My recollection is basically - it's very unpolished, and it's mostly just a satirical fantasy runaround. It doesn't have the character or the emotional themes or the overall wittiness that mark Pratchett's later work. And it's also just not really representative of the series as a whole.

[meadowphoenix]

hmm, that's an interesting thought process, and to me it implies that if you don't love love something you won't continue. It's possible that really is how people read now, but I don't think that's how I read when I encountered Discworld.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think it's how everyone reads. But I think it is how a lot of people read, and if I'm trying to get someone into Discworld, it's a safer bet to cater to that.

Another way to think about it maybe. It's really easy for me to imagine the failure state if you recommend someone to start with The Colour Of Magic - it's really easy to imagine a hypothetical person who would like the later books, but doesn't like The Colour Of Magic, doesn't make it through that or The Light Fantastic, and so never reads the series as a whole. It's hard to imagine the person who is the converse of that - the person who would read Discworld if they started with The Colour of Magic but who wouldn't read Discworld if they started with Wyrd Sisters or Guards! Guards! or whatever.

[meadowphoenix]

I think I disagree on your failure state (Guards! Guards! wouldn't be my choice for most of the people i know because the witty playfulness of light social policy commentary wouldn't overcome having to read about policy at any depth; I think Wyrd Sisters accomplishes something similar to Color of Magic but I actually think the audience is slightly more specific than it might seem). I think the anon below(? above?) talks about finding what fits your audience and that's probably where I land, but I can't be certain until I read The Color of Magic again, which I am happy to do!

[(Anonymous)]

I don’t think it’s that people necessarily dislike it, so much as that most reading order recommendations for Discworld tend to strongly advise not starting with it. It doesn’t entirely represent the direction the series took later, and it’s arguably clunky in comparison to a lot of the later series. It’s also slightly dated, in that the genre of fantasy it’s overtly and directly parodying is old-school sword-and-sorcery. Think Conan, Sinbad, etc. So a lot of people feel that it won’t be the best introduction for new fans to the rest of the series. The early Rincewind books are slightly tonally mismatched from a lot of the other subseries and even the later additions to his own, so the idea is that starting with it won’t give you the most accurate impression of Discworld as a whole.

Doesn’t mean it’s not a fun book all on its own, or that you can’t start with it, or even that the people advising this don’t like it. It’s just that a lot of people advise starting Discworld further in, and circling back to Colour of Magic/Light Fantastic later on.

[meadowphoenix]

ooooh, gotcha. whelp! I'm going to have to agree with the OP then. Part of the reason I kept reading discworld novels was because it was kinda amazing and enjoyable just watching characters and the whole world take shape. Going from the full color to scratch drawings seems torturous lmao.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, depends on your dedication and what you enjoy. I can see the argument for the thematic reading order, going by subseries, because the fact of the matter is that Discworld went a lot of places, explored a lot of different types of fantasy, and had some fairly different casts in the various subseries. If you’ve got someone new coming in, you want to hook them with the type of fantasy/characters they’ll enjoy first, and then let them explore outwards from that. It's technically how I did it. I started on the Watch books because my uncle handed me Guards Guards back in the day and went from there. I can see the argument for chronological order as well, though, because yes. As you say, a lot of the joy of Discworld is watching it evolve over time, seeing how PTerry himself grew and evolved, his beliefs and philosophies changing. Seeing how something like Small Gods so clearly influenced the later Watch and Witch books, it's awesome. That's what I wound up doing later, when I had more disposable income to work with. I bought the ones I'd been missing and read everything through start to finish, and wound up loving the whole thing more. But it just depends on the person trying to get into the series, and what method's going to work best for them, I think.

[meadowphoenix]

Yeah, I definitely I enjoyed a whole bunch of subgenres of fantasy, so the start wouldn't have mattered to me, especially because I was reading for the send-up itself. It's pretty great that you can have a whole bunch of different interests converge in one series.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I enjoyed those two and they aren't even my least favorite in the series, but they don't really give a good idea of whether you'll like the rest of the series because they're so different from it, so thus the suggestion to start somewhere else.