Long before JK Rowling came on the scene, there was a very different British author taking the (made up) world by storm. Terry Pratchett sadly passed away in March of 2015 at age 66, but before that he was an extremely prolific writer. His best known series is Discworld, which includes 41 novels, five short stories, and quite a few companion and reference books written between 1983 and 2015.
I know, this sounds insane. If you are the kind of person who loves lengthy fantasy series, just go out and start reading these already. I’m not really sure why you haven’t yet. But if a 50 book long series about witches and wizards sounds horrible to you, don’t worry, I’m with you. Now let me tell you why you’re wrong.
Discworld truly has something for everyone. You like fantasy? Great! There’s all the wizards and dragons that your heart could desire. You hate fantasy? Great! Discworld is a parody of the genre which constantly makes fun of itself: full of satire, puns, allusions, and culture references. You love series of books? Great! There are plenty of characters you can follow through years of their adventures. You hate series of books? Great! This is my personal favorite thing about Discworld. I get so tired of following one person on and on and on until their life isn’t interesting anymore (Cursed Child anyone?), or becomes trite and repetitive (isn’t there anyone besides the Skywalkers somewhere out there in the universe?). Terry Pratchett handles this beautifully. He has created a world and a set of rules for that world, but he jumps around to different people, different continents, and different cultures. The first few books take place in your standard medieval fantasy world, but by the end they have made it through the industrial revolution, as well as jumping back to tell the ancient history of the world.
If you still don’t believe me, a few of the books have been made into movies (The Colour of Magic, Hogfather, Going Postal) and cartoons (Soul Music, Wyrd Sisters). They are well done and about as accurate as a movie can get, so you can gauge whether Discworld is for you.
Once you are ready to take the plunge, the order is really up to you. You can follow the world in chronological order (time in the books passes at about the same rate as in the real world, i.e. the characters are all about 30 years older in the last book than they were in the first), or follow individual story lines or characters. Even in a random order, they would keep most of their integrity as individual books. All of this jumping around can get confusing, but never fear, we’ve got you covered. Just print out this handy dandy bookmark reading guide, and get reading!
Hey, glad that i saw on this in google. Thanks!