Terry Pratchett’s Discworld

What’s the Discworld? It’s a disc-shaped world that travels on the backs of four elephants standing on a giant turtle (Great A’Tuin) who travels through space, of course. And it’s also a fantasy (for lack of a better word) saga composed of 41 books written by the legendary Terry Pratchett, an English author who died prematurely in 2015.

It can be labelled fantasy because the protagonists of the stories are wizards, witches, dwarves, trolls, golems, vampires, werewolves, pixies… but, in the best tradition of the genre (and of all speculative fiction), these amazing books allow Pratchett to talk about a thousand aspects of our world such as sexism, racism, war, economics, education and prejudices. Never heavy or moralizing, Pratchett communicates everything with extreme irony, sometimes a very cynical one, while narrating funny adventures with which it’s easy to get attached to their recurring (and non-recurring) characters. If you haven’t yet understood it: when you read these books it’s hard not to laugh out loud sometimes!

Typically, the many entries of the saga are grouped into mini-sagas depending on the protagonists. We can identify the story arcs of the wizards, of the witches, of the City Watch, as well as those of single protagonists such as Tiffany Aching, Moist von Lipwig, and Death. Some books escape this categorisation, and sometimes characters of a series appear in different ones (Death in particular has cameos a bit everywhere, for example).

One of the greatest features of the Discworld is that each book can be read independently of all the others. In fact, reading them in chronological order is not necessary at all! Obviously, if you do so you can appreciate more details, certain characters, and the world building in general… But an undeniable advantage of the saga is that you can start from any point and follow any reading path.

Do you want to read all the witches’ books? Be my guest. Maybe you prefer the Watch? Read them all! Is random ordering your thing? Fine with me! Personally, after reading two or three random books, I decided to read them all in strict chronological order to enjoy fully the saga as it was created by its author, but everyone is free to follow their own strategy.

It goes without saying that Pratchett is one of my favorite authors, and he’s certainly the one I have read the most books by. I love how he plays with fantasy clichés by completely overturning them, with evil elves and with witches who consider it silly to dance naked in the forest in the moonlight. Throughout the saga, there are numerous references to other more or less known fantasy works, but also to books of other genres, films and even the news. And sometimes it’s not trivial to understand if the intent is to pay homage or to make fun of the works mentioned by Pratchett!

I’ve read the whole saga myself (in fact, I haven’t read the last three books yet, even though I’ve bought them already), I love the author’s writing style, his humor and his way of telling stories. For example, here’s a great quote from Small Gods: “Time is like a drug. Too much of it kills you.“

Sir Terry unfortunately was given too little time, and I cried when he left this world arm in arm with Death due to a rare form of Alzheimer’s (and let me recommend you the short book Shaking Hands With Death, about his experience with that horrible disease – there’s also a wonderful reading of it on Youtube).

To pay homage to him (as if he needed it), I decided to write this little introduction to the wonderful world he created, followed by specific reviews of the books of the saga that you see below in chronological order of publication. Slowly, as soon as I find the time to write them, I will add links to the reviews to the titles in the list below (some are in Italian – please use Google Translate on the right). Meanwhile, with the hope of having intrigued you in case you don’t know the Discworld, I salute you, ciao!

1. The Colour of Magic
2. The Light Fantastic
3. Equal Rites
4. Mort
5. Sourcery
6. Wyrd Sisters
7. Pyramids
8. Guards! Guards!
9. Faust Eric
10. Moving Pictures
11. Reaper Man
12. Witches Abroad
13. Small Gods
14. Lords and Ladies
15. Men at Arms
16. Soul Music
17. Interesting times
18. Maskerade
19. Feet of Clay
20. Hogfather
21. Jingo
22. The Last Continent
23. Carpe Jugulum
24. The Fifth Elephant
25. The Truth
26. Thief of Time
27. The Last Hero
28. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
29. Night Watch
30. The Wee Free Men
31. Monstrous Regiment
32. A Hat Full of Sky
33. Going Postal
34. Thud!
35. Wintersmith
36. Making Money
37. Unseen Academicals
38. I Shall Wear Midnight
39. Snuff
40. Raising Steam
41. The Shepherd’s Crown