It’s a series you will never regret reading. It’s clever and funny, beautiful and angry, and leaves you feeling as though you, yes you, can change the world.
It’s a story that mocks the powerful and empowers the weak. That takes a step back and let’s you see how laughable, beautiful, how ugly, how incredible humanity is.
It doesn’t have to be read in any particular order, or all at once. They aren’t meant to be spread through like so many YA/NA books these days, rather read thoughtfully and then read again and again, then given to a friend as a dog eared offering to please, please read this.
Too long you say?
If you embark into the Discworld, I can guarantee that at the end you will feel that whatever it was, it was not long enough.
Don’t vow to read it someday, get started right now. Start with Guards! Guards! or Mort or the Wee Free Men or Small Gods or Monstrous Regiment. Like summers said, all books are stand-alone stories so it’s not a commitment, it’s easy and goes fast, just get started.
Terry Pratchett’s writing is so unlike anyone else’s, it’s unpretentious, poignant, incredibly real in the simplicity of its expression, hilarious in its way of avoiding and poking fun at storytelling clichés. Discworld will make you fall in love with the world, with humanity and its best sides without sugar-coating it and handing you pink glasses, and it will show you the ugliness in it without cheap grimdark horror shows.
You’re asking who let Terry Pratchett do this but believe me, after
reading the series, you will be furious about what it was that didn’t let him do
more.
Some expert advice
“…I find it now rather embarrassing that people
beginning the the Discworld series start with “The Colour of Magic” and
“The Light Fantastic”, which I don’t think are some of the best books to
start with. This is the author saying this, folks. Do not start at the
beginning with Discworld.”
(Terry Pratchett in ’Straight from the Heart, Via the
Groin’, included in “A Slip of the Keyboard”.)
Discworld got solid from “Mort” onward but IMO a
good First Discworld book is “Guards! Guards!”.
There is an internal chronology – characters get older, get
married etc. – but it doesn’t have a strong enough influence to require a “read in this order or not at
all.”
And beyond Discworld (besides the Nomes and Johnny) there’s
“Good Omens”…
Every single time someone posts about “Should I read Discworld?” or “What order should I read Discworld in?” legions of fans descend like a horde of Jehovah’s Witnesses asking you if you’ve heard the good word about Terry Pratchett.
i’m crying that’s exactly it?? not that i mind book recs but Terry Pratchett fans are some of the most overzealous people i’ve ever come across on tumblr. in an endearing way
