I’ll admit I skip the first few books and start with Mort or Guards, Guards! during a reread depending on which subseries I’m craving. The early books aren’t bad, but they definitely improved as he fleshed out the world more.
The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic especially read more like Douglas Adams in style. Later Douglas Adams, when his cynicism was at its peak and he made his characters miserable in response. The following books are much softer and more philosophical in tone.
Death being straight up antagonistic in the first few books (even killing a random cat when angry IIRC) is the most bothersome part of the early stuff. He’s my favorite character in all of fiction, so seeing him characterized like that doesn’t feel great.
Yeah, funnily enough I felt Pratchett grew more and more frustrated with the world as time went on, just he found a more constructive way to depict it. Characters like Vimes, Moist, and Vetenari are deeply flawed humans who manage to nonetheless be the best they can and to aid the world as they are. Tiffany Aching is who he wants the world to have more of and meant to serve as a role model especially for his daughter, but for all young people, to encourage thinking and caring and to value the hard labor of taking care of those that other’s don’t.
Reaper Man is definitely in my top five Discworld novels, and isn’t first only due to how amazing his other books are.
I don’t have a list of favorite Discworld novels, that would be too long, I have a list of novels I skip on rereads.
Completely unrelated question. Can a list with nothing in it still be considered a list?
I’ll admit I skip the first few books and start with Mort or Guards, Guards! during a reread depending on which subseries I’m craving. The early books aren’t bad, but they definitely improved as he fleshed out the world more.
The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic especially read more like Douglas Adams in style. Later Douglas Adams, when his cynicism was at its peak and he made his characters miserable in response. The following books are much softer and more philosophical in tone.
Death being straight up antagonistic in the first few books (even killing a random cat when angry IIRC) is the most bothersome part of the early stuff. He’s my favorite character in all of fiction, so seeing him characterized like that doesn’t feel great.
Yeah, funnily enough I felt Pratchett grew more and more frustrated with the world as time went on, just he found a more constructive way to depict it. Characters like Vimes, Moist, and Vetenari are deeply flawed humans who manage to nonetheless be the best they can and to aid the world as they are. Tiffany Aching is who he wants the world to have more of and meant to serve as a role model especially for his daughter, but for all young people, to encourage thinking and caring and to value the hard labor of taking care of those that other’s don’t.