if anyone here hasn't had the joy of reading Terry, just know that it was absolutely delightful and nails both humor and fantasy and social commentary in a way that very few people in history have ever done. I regret many things in life but reading the Discworld Novels is not one of them.
opinion is also split on where to start, since it is generally agreed that the early books weren't the best, and yet the recurring characters do develop over time. I started with Feet of Clay, which took me like 3 attempts before i finally "got it". I now often recommend Small Gods to people, because it is a self contained book with only cameos from recurring characters, and it has really nice commentary on religion, reflexivity, and the role of belief in our actions and realities. I also particularly recommend the Night Watch series, just because Vimes is pretty much Terry's self insert, and as a business minded person I also loved the later Moist series (eg Going Postal).
GNU Terry Pratchett. may your timeless stories be endlessly told and retold.
I always tell people to start with Guards! Guards! because I'm a huge City Watch fanboy. But depending on the person I might recommend Small Gods or Monstrous Regiment instead.
After reddit's hostility towards users became clear, I started reading Discworld books again. I think my all time favourite will always be Thud!
> After reddit's hostility towards users became clear
You mean the API thing? For me it was a month earlier when they put my 13-year account into a Kafkaesque shadow-hell.
(TLDR: Randomly shadowbanned as if a spambot, all content removed, appealed, appeal GRANTED with an "oops" apology, but nothing was actually fixed, can't use appeals-page to contact them because it falsely claims my account is normal, I can't private message anybody, weeks of modmail to admins with no reply, etc.)
It says a lot about the state of the reddit codebase when they can't even edit post titles. Likewise the recent deletion of private messages points to a serious lack of talent and really terrible code.
Makes me think that the API works were almost completely due to an inability of reddit's engineers to write anything but the most basic code. And modifying more complex code is right out.
How unhelpfully dismissive. Even if I was willing to let 13 years of content/memberships/friend-links/etc. be destroyed, do you honestly think I didn't try that?
I resurrected a 6-year-old account I had used as a throwaway, since it already had some qualifying age and karma, allowing me to to actually post in relevant help-subreddits. (For example, I posted a bug-report in /r/bugs.)
Yet within couple weeks, IT HAPPENED AGAIN: Totally vanilla usage leading to the exact same series of events, plunging the other account into the same inexplicable bugged state.
Do you have roommates or other people sharing your Internet connection?
It really, really sucks that reddit messed up your account. I've grown incredibly attached to some of my online personas and I'd be devastated if they were taken from me.
It's like my bewilderment when talking to people who think your comment history should be private. I want people to see who I am, and how I respond to different situations. Even those times when I've made mistakes and jumped to bad conclusions.
I have to pitch in and also recommend Unsong[1] by Scott Alexander, of Slate Star Codex and Astral Codex Ten fame. If you always wished to read a Pratchett book, but with jokes about technology and where the protagonist is a DRM breaker, this is that book. Genuinely one of the best things I've ever read.
Small Gods was one of my favorites though I recommend people just start at the beginning. The earlier books are great too , you just have to read them more like goofy fantasy novels from the 80s. They set up a lot of the general attitudes about magic and the Discworld in general that mostly carry through as the books continue.
Small Gods will always be my favourite (not least because I got mine signed by the man himself, many years ago in Dorchester. Though isn't the joke that he signed so many books that it's the unsigned ones that are more valuable?). For starters though, I'd pitch Wyrd Sisters or Guards! Guards! Both are wonderfully constructed, early, but late enough that he's stopped satirising fantasy novels and has started satirising the world.
> since it is generally agreed that the early books weren't the best
They're fine in their own right, but the first two are much more straight parody fantasy epics, and jarringly different from the rest of the series (a few later ones also fall into this category, particularly Eric). I'd say from book 3 on (Equal Rites), though, you're largely into the series proper.
I think it varies for people; if you're at all into "cop thrillers/mysteries" than I think starting with the Watch books is a great introduction.
Honestly, the only thing NOT to do is read them in order of publication - his earliest works are good, but they're better read when you already know Discworld (imho).
The first in the “witches” series is “Equal Rites”, but is, IIUC, considered a very weak entry. The rest of the witches series don’t really acknowledge the events in it, and they start off the next book with a blank slate, not assuming that you have read the first one. If you really just want to read the witches series, I’d suggest that you instead start with the second book, “Wyrd Sisters”.
I think Monstrous Regiment was supposed to be a young adult entry? But I'm surprised you included Carpe Jugulum, when for me "making money" was by far the worst. it seemed so derivative, as if it had been generated with an LLM trained on his previous work (or maybe a ghost writer helping out a very sick pratchett..)
I admit there are a couple I've never read (they're sitting on the shelf next to me - Raising Steam, Unseen Academicals, Making Money). That way I'll always have another Terry Pratchett novel to read.
I felt that Carpe Jugulum was a retread of Lords & Ladies, and the formula was getting stale by that point.
If Monstrous Regiment is YA, it has to go up against Tiffany Aching, and it definitely loses there.
My wife and I are both starting with Hogfather, which seemed as good as any and worked as an easy gift (I can't recall if I bought it for Christmas or Father's Day)
opinion is also split on where to start, since it is generally agreed that the early books weren't the best, and yet the recurring characters do develop over time. I started with Feet of Clay, which took me like 3 attempts before i finally "got it". I now often recommend Small Gods to people, because it is a self contained book with only cameos from recurring characters, and it has really nice commentary on religion, reflexivity, and the role of belief in our actions and realities. I also particularly recommend the Night Watch series, just because Vimes is pretty much Terry's self insert, and as a business minded person I also loved the later Moist series (eg Going Postal).
GNU Terry Pratchett. may your timeless stories be endlessly told and retold.