Reading Order for Discworld novels?

[Patrick Mahon]

I'm coming to Pratchett's discworld novels for the first time. What would you recommend as a reading order? Being a sad, logical type of fellow, I was going to start with "The Colour of Magic", and work my way through in publication order. But other threads here would seem to suggest that it would be better to pick the series up half way through, as it started a bit slowly. Is this fair? I presume that Terry wouldn't think so?

Cheers,
Patrick.

[weaveworld]

Hi and Welcome

Here you go...

Rincewind:

1 The Colour of Magic
2 The Light Fantastic
5 Sourcery
9 Eric
17 Interesting Times
22 The Last Continent
27 The Last Hero

Witches:

3 Equal Rites
6 Wyrd Sisters
12 Witches Abroad
14 Lords and Ladies
18 Maskerade
23 Carpe Jugulum

Death:

4 Mort
11 Reaper Man
16 Soul Music
20 Hogfather
26 Thief of Time

Watch:

8 Guards! Guards!
15 Men at Arms
19 Feet of Clay
21 Jingo
24 The Fifth Elephant
25 The Truth
29 Night Watch (read #26 Thief of Time first)

All of the above are Discworld books (as you know), the numbers beside are the order they come in but they have been separated under characters

Standalone:

7 Pyramids
10 Moving Pictures
13 Small Gods
28 The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

Enjoy Patrick

[Green]

I'd add to that by saying don't start with the Rincewind books. Simply because out of all the threads, his are the worst imo. The watchmen and the witches are my favourites.

EDIT - add "Thud" to the end of the Watch list

[CarlottaVonUberwald]

i started form the start and worked my way chronologically through them and was none the worst for it. i think its really a matter of personal taste

[purple_kathryn]

I think everyone has a favourite discworld character (s). Mine are the witches.

Personally speaking I would of read them in publication order. However if you do decide to read one "series" before another then you won't find you've spoilt other books.

[Green]

I read the first few in publication order, but I think that Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic are two of the weakest books in the entire series. I wouldn't actually recommend someone to start with those two. But meh, personal taste and all that, like Carlotta says.

[CarlottaVonUberwald]

yeah ..once you've read them you will know where you should have started...your best off takingsomeone with similar book tastes to yous advice

[Patrick Mahon]

Thanks everyone - but particularly weaveworld for such a comprehensively sub-divided bibliography!

I've started reading "The Light Fantastic", because it was the only one in at the local library near work, but will take your advice and probably try to read "Equal rites" or "Mort" next, to see what the different series are like, and then make up my mind!

Cheers,
Patrick.

[The Ace]

The Light Fantastic has one major factor in it. "In place of the senior librarian sat a small, bewildered Orang-Utan.

[fifteenjugglers]

I don't think reading order is all that important. I just read them as I found them at the library and I turned out just fine. In fact, the Discworld series is probably the only one where in some cases reading a later book adds meaning to an earlier one, unlike other series where the opposite is generally true. I can't remember any specific examples of this but I know it's happened a couple of times while I've been enjoying a Discworld book. Maybe it's got something to do with L-space...

[Allegra]

My 1st discworld was The Fifth Elephant a few years back. I remember before I finished it I already bought the first few of the series. Then I followed publication dates for a while. After that until now I just pick one at random from my up-to-date collection. Since I have too many books to be read I go back to discworld once in a while. It always feels like visiting an old friend.

[Nesacat]

I read the first few in order and then switched to reading them based on character. My favourite Death followed by the Witches and I've recetly started reading the books about the Watch thanks to Moo and Thud! All in all the order of the books does not really matter and it's very much up to you.

[Jason_Taverner]

thanks for the lists I was looking for more watch books, currently reading thud!, I love the watch so much, I have three more watch books to read, I haven't read them in any order, I think I started with nightwatch still brilliant.

[Allegra]

Going postal seems missing from the list. Should be in the stand-alones (hopefully soon won't be ).