The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett

...was never meant to fly, the curling stars waver and part...See...Great A'Tuin the turtle comes, swimming slowly through the interstellar gulf, hydrogen frost on his ponderous limbs, his huge and ancient shell pocked with meteor craters....(upon his back)... Berelia, Tubul, Great T'phon, and Jerakeen, the four giant elephants upon whose broad and star-tanned shoulders the Disc of the World rests..." Such is our first view of the astounding Discworld ...
...trees ad actually slows down the speed at which sunlight crosses the land! What would one pack in order to visit such a land and what would you pack it in? Idle questions perhaps as the Discworld has never had a tourist...til now that is!

Twoflower is a dangerously naive and optimistic traveler from a distant and mysterious country on the Discworld. He has packed up all his best traveling gear in his sapient pearwood Luggage and come ... more

"In a distant and second-hand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling stars waver and part...See...Great A'Tuin the turtle comes, swimming slowly through the interstellar gulf, hydrogen frost on his ponderous limbs, his huge and ancient shell pocked with meteor craters....(upon his back)... Berelia, Tubul, Great T'phon, and Jerakeen, the four giant elephants upon whose broad and star-tanned shoulders the Disc of the World rests..." Such is our first view of the astounding Discworld where magic is so plentiful it can spontaneously bring sentience to trees ad actually slows down the speed at which sunlight crosses the land! What would one pack in order to visit such a land and what would you pack it in? Idle questions perhaps as the Discworld has never had a tourist...til now that is!

Twoflower is a dangerously naive and optimistic traveler from a distant and mysterious country on the Discworld. He has packed up all his best traveling gear in his sapient pearwood Luggage and come to sample the dubious delights of Ankh-Morpork, a city better known for its complex and dominant odor than its cultural delights. Rincewind, possibly the most incompetent wizard to ever disgrace an overly-spangled hat, is destined for many things...greatness and peace of mind not being high on that list! Rincewind, pawn of the Gods, is unwittingly roped into becoming Twoflower's tour guide on this mad romp through Terry Pratchett's' mad and hilarious Discworld. The Gods may be crazy, but hey they enjoy a joke as much as the next guy. Before they know quite what they are about, Twoflower, Rincewind and the homicidal and, literally, fiercely loyal Luggage are about to embark on the journey of several lifetimes, much to Rincewind's regret.

This novel is an absolutely delightful introduction into this author's inventive and endlessly amusing world. Each of the Discworld novels that I have read thus far seem to be stand-alone works that don't really require one to start at the beginning of the series. However, I do recommend starting with The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic, the further adventures of Twoflower, Rincewind and Luggage, simply because they are such an outstanding introduction to the most amusing series since The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Actually, this is the first author who has ever reminded me of the fabulous and hysterically funny Douglas Adams, which is high recommendation all on its own. Pratchett has a penchant for parodying a great many well-known characters and works throughout this series. Fantasy fans may recognize shades of The Gray Mouser and Fafhrd, and H.P. Lovecraft's Ancient Ones in this novel alone.

I have to say that for all the amusing characters, insane situations, intensely comedic moments and original world, the most entertaining character in this novel, for me, was without doubt Luggage. A sentient being made of the rare sapient pearwood, Luggage appears to be a large chest...until you notice it's menacingly glaring keyhole and the dozens of tiny pink feet propelling it toward you. You might get a chance to be startled before registering the large pink tongue, but then again you might not. Luggage, after the fashion of most traveling accessories across the multiverse, has a tendency to get lost and spends most of these first two novels trying to catch up to his erstwhile owner.

Rincewind is a curious character who shows up in several novels throughout the Discworld series. As a student in the Unseen University, the exclusively male wizard school, Rincewind dared to read a spell from one of the more dangerously magical tomes chained in the library. As a result, his mind became the home for one of the Great Spells that tend to keep the world, such as it is, in the relative order it has become accustomed to, and even Rincewind has no idea which spell he has absorbed! Rincewind's mind has been unable to retain or learn any other magic since. It seems the other spells are afraid to share the same space with it. This hapless magic-user has been making his living mostly off of his innate gift with languages ever since. Which is how he comes to be hired by the enthusiastic, and dangerously optimistic, first ever tourist of the Discworld, Twoflower.

Together these three characters serve to give us a fast-paced tour of this Wonderland-ish planet and it's various inhabitants from Trolls to Dragon lords. For Fantasy fiction fans, I usually describe Pratchett's work as a cross between Douglas Adams and Piers Anthony. For the uninitiated, I simply say, "You gotta try this, it's hysterically entertaining!" I resisted this series for several years simply because so very many people recommended tit to me, which tends to make me leery. I quickly came to see what a great disservice I had done to myself! I've been making up for lost time ever since, and have been pouring my way through the Discworld as quickly as possible. I've tried to read them as close to "in order" as possible, but can say that it really doesn't make much difference after the first two novels.

Pratchett's marvelous sense of humor makes each Discworld novel an utter delight in this mundane, troubled, and oft times troublesome world of ours. With lines like, "Let's just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards'.", and "Picturesque meant - he decided after careful observation of the scenery that inspired Twoflower to use the word - that the landscape was horribly precipitous. Quaint, when used to describe the occasional village through which they passed, meant fever-ridden and tumbledown.Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, mean 'idiot'." consistently brought forth irresistible laughter no matter where I was while reading The Color of Magic. The likelihood of uncontrollable public laughter is really the only drawback I've found to Pratchett's entertaining Discworld thus far. 

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