Discworld

You should read some Discworld because once Pratchett found his groove, he was able to write some densely-hilarious, densely-literate, amazingly-told stories that often have profound things to say about justice, equality, society, acceptance & inclusivity, and the nature of being sentient. Pratchett’s humor spans the gamut from well-placed puns, wry observations about “roundworld” which an entire website is dedicated to explaining, copious footnotes, deadpan juxtapositions, bizarre yet perfect analogies, intricate jokes which take two-thirds of the book to setup, extreme anthropomorphism, and more. Some of the books re-tell Shakespeare or folk tales, others rethink fairy tales, some of them are mystery novels, a few read like capers or thrillers, and I might even reluctantly describe one of my favorites as a redemption story meets business fiction.

Coffee is a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your older self.

— Thud!

HUMAN BEINGS MAKE LIFE SO INTERESTING. DO YOU KNOW, THAT IN A UNIVERSE SO FULL OF WONDERS, THEY HAVE MANAGED TO INVENT BOREDOM.

— Hogfather

What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.

— Going Postal

Then there is the dress. It has been owned by many sisters as well and has been taken up, taken out, taken down, and taken in by her mother so many times that it really ought to have been taken away.

— The Wee Free Men

After the first ten to fifteen books or so, Pratchett goes from re-presenting fairy tales, folk lore, and fantasy tropes, and starts re-contextualizing them, making them feel more like our own world. The main city is home to people of nearly all the disc’s species and backgrounds; the animosity between dwarves and trolls feels like the animosity between certain ethnic groups here on roundworld, trolls being a bit undesirable what with mobsters and drug problems, and dwarves having a very conservative and xenophobic culture, for example; the elves hew more to fairy tale material – but with all the edges that stories and time have worn off. There are lots of great little touches in the world building like the black ribbon vampires who swear not one drop and golem rights activists.

Sometime in the late ’90s, Pratchett started introducing technology to the world, first in the form of a network of lantern-based towers used to relay messages via semaphore. Many of the books from there on out use this as a way of exploring how high-speed long-distance communication might change a society. The theme of how technology transforms society continues right up to the final book.

On top of this, the world building compounds. While nearly every book is considered standalone – the second book The Light Fantastic is the only true sequel in the entire series – the richness of the built world accumulates with familiarity of its locales and characters, and rewards multiple readings.

My reason for revisiting the series actually started with wanting to find something to read my child by somebody who wasn’t problematic: his daughter vehemently refuted a posthumous attempt by transphobic activists (nevermind that Terry himself wrote an entire book refuting forcibly-assigned gender roles in 2003) and a core tenet of the series is that belief is how we make sense of the world: that beliefs are a story you tell, which means, you help build your own reality. There are perhaps two things that might give you pause about Pratchett as a person: He accepted a knighthood for the Order of the British Empire, and was friends and co-author with Neil Gaiman — though at a distance.

So I read to my kid the six Discworld novels marketed towards younger readers and thought, well, maybe I should read the 20+ books in the series I hadn’t read yet, and re-read the rest of them while I was at it. I’m glad I did.

A note on the audiobooks: There are two sets of audiobook renditions for each book in the series. Many of the first-produced were read by Stephen Briggs, and the latter set by a variety of British actors following character arcs; the main actor will do most narration, including voices for all but one character; Bill Nighy reads the footnotes, and Peter Serafinowicz voicing Death (that is, the grim reaper, who appears in almost all the books). My recent read-through was almost entirely the second set of audiobooks.

The main problem in recommending Discworld is overcoming the idea that one should start at the beginning or that one should immediately set about reading the whole thing. You shouldn’t do either. I can’t find a reference, but reportedly even Pratchett himself recommended people start with book 5, Sourcery.

There are a couple of problems in finding a good starting point: while each book is officially considered to stand alone, some work better as starting points than others. The series is complex enough there are multiple flowcharts explaining chronology, character relationships, references, and how they intersect with your interest; and the books tend to get better as Pratchett found his voice, but don’t start getting really damned good until a bit after halfway through the publication order, by which time many of the books benefit from the context of their predecessors.

Here are my recommended first forays:

§The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (book 28)

Maurice the cat can talk, accompanies some rats who ate some magical trash, and now they can all talk and think like people. Maurice found a “stupid-looking” kid who plays a flute, and has them all going from town-to-town running a pied piper scam: the rats create a mess, the townspeople call for a rat piper, and conveniently there’s a kid who can lead the rats out of town. The rats don’t like this, but they want money to get a place where they can live in peace, so they’ve agreed to One Last Job in the town of Bad Blintz, and of course something fishy is going on: a rat plague is already in progress and a rat piper has been called in. While there are some of the most lethal and dangerous traps the intelligent rats have ever seen in Bad Blintz, they find no native, normally-intelligent rats. On top of that, the mayor’s daughter discovered that Maurice can talk, and blackmails them to help figure out what’s going on.

This is a dark and brilliant take on The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and one of my favorite books in the series. It has no real ties to the rest of the series. It’s the first marketed towards younger readers (and therefore the first with chapters), but holds its own for adults. It’s strongly plotted, well-paced, is filled with amazing characters, and dives into mystery, ethics, philosophy, and the nature of evil with aplomb. It has several great set pieces, and the ending does something wonderful with the aftermath that most books just skip over because it’s too messy.

Look, what I’m saying is, you’re the leader, right? So you got to act like you know what you’re doing, okay? If the leader doesn’t know what he’s doing, no one else does, either.”

“I only know what I’m doing when I’m dismantling traps,” said Darktan.

“All right, think of the future as a great big trap,” said Sardines. “With no cheese.”

I think my favorite parts of the book relate to how the younger rats are discovering they’re afraid of shadows, because they understand what the shadows hint at, and how the older rats aren’t happy about all the changes and just want to keep acting like rats. Much like they have a “trap squad” to understand and work around physical traps and poisons, they’re discovering they also need philosophy, to help with the equivalent mental territory.

The trouble with thinking was that, once you started, you went on doing it.

There is a 2022 movie adapatation of the book, which has middling reviews and I haven’t seen, though it features Hugh Laurie, David Tennant, and Emilia Clarke, and David Thewlis.

§Going Postal (book 33)

Moist von Lipwig is a con man and fraudster who is to be hanged, but the ruler of the disc’s most prolific city has other plans for him: putting him in charge of rehabilitating the decades-defunct post office. The five previous postmasters were killed in the attempt, so why not? After a run-in with the new ownership of the semaphore towers – ruthless financiers who’ll do whatever it takes to eliminate the competition, Moist realizes it’s not enough to make the post office functional but also revive people’s belief in it.

There is a saying ‘You can’t fool an honest man’ which is much quoted by people who make a profitable living by fooling honest men.

This was the first Discworld novel I completed, and it remains one of my favorite novels. Moist is a genuinely compelling character, and this is the book I’d reluctantly describe as “a redemption story meets business fiction”; it’s a story about the skills and consequences of grifting, illustrated in both its protagonist and antagonist. The book was published in 2004 and is clearly inspired by the burgeoning internet technology industry with callbacks to the industrial revolution, and the consequences of private equity.

My problem with the book is bound up intractably with its premise: public services should not be run like con jobs or startups, and the approach taken here feels like a relic of a more painfully innocent time. Lipwig’s love interest is meant as a stand-in for the reader’s skepticism, but in the 22 years since the book was published she might have to become even more cynical.

Going Postal was adapted to a two-part BBC Series starring Richard Coyle as Moist (Coyle also does a great job narrating the book in the second audiobook rendition) and features Charles Dance as such a strong rendition of Lord Vetinari that he is now my mental picture of the character persistent through the series.

§Wyrd Sisters (book 6)

The King was murdered, his infant heir is rescued in the nick of time, the Duke who murdered him is a nasty piece of work, and it’s up to three witches (Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick) to put things right.

The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo.

This book has a lot of references to Shakespeare and in particular Macbeth, and if you’re a fan of theater or even classic performed comedy there are a ton of references to spot. It is a story about political power, who wields it and how; and how that ties in to people’s need for a story they can tell themselves about how the world works. It’s a great starting point for both the “Witches” series and its successor centered on younger witch Tiffany Aching, and it’s the earliest-published book I’d recommend starting with.

§The Wee Free Men (book 30)

Tiffany Aching is the youngest daughter of an old shepherding family; her late grandmother a legendary shepherd and wise-woman whom even the Baron respected. When Tiffany was eight years old, the Baron’s son went missing, and the villagers blamed an old woman with too many books, thinking her a witch; they stoned her cat and burned her hut down, and she died in the cold winter — Tiffany’s grandmother never would have let that happen. Tiffany buried the cat and measured the woman’s oven – there’s no way the Baron’s son could have fit in it; Tiffany decides she wants to become a witch so that sort of thing doesn’t happen again. A year later, Tiffany’s brother is kidnapped by fairies, so she goes after him armed with a frying pan… and a bit of unexpected help from some carousing, fighting Smurfs.

And all the stories had, somewhere, the witch. The wicked old witch.

And Tiffany had thought: Where’s the evidence?

I liked a lot about this book, but perhaps most of all is how – rare for a book with a pre-teen protagonist – is how she comes to terms with her dislike for her younger brother, and her lack of emotion at her grandmother’s death. I think kids tend to end up with this idea of how we’re supposed to feel about certain situations and then when those feelings don’t manifest, that disconnect can turn into self-doubt, and this book examines that expectation gap wonderfully.

The Nac Mac Feegle (the titular Wee Free Men) make for a delightful comic relief, and while there’s a glossary to help with understanding their vocabulary, the audiobooks (both renditions) provide a bit of a challenge to understand them.

§Guards! Guards! (book 8)

The Night Watch is a joke. Down to three memebers, its captain is a drunkard, its sergeant ineffective, and its constable slightly less shady than most criminals. Into this comes an idealist orphan human raised by dwarves with a strange birthmark and mysterious sword, sent to take a job with the Guard, and a plot to depose the city’s ruler via magical Dragon – one of those legendary big, flying things could level a city, that no one’s seen for a long time; not one of the more common swamp dragons the size of a dog who have combustible indigestion. It seems that Sam Vimes can put a stop to it — if only he can sober up.

Down there - he said - are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any inequity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathsomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don’t say no.

As the first book in the City Watch sub-series, this is many people’s preferred introductory book. It’s a parody of hardboiled detective novels but has lots of humor outside of that genre, and while the pacing starts off a bit slow, it’s a solid story and introduces Ankh-Morpork and its cast of characters beyond the glimpses from The Colour of Magic and Sourcery. The setting is commonly used in the Industrial Revolution series as well as a few of the Witches books.

§Moving Pictures (book 10)

Using trained imps and flashing salamanders, an alchemist figured out how to capture and replay a sequence of pictures. Not too far away in the abandoned villa of Holy Wood, the last Keeper of The Door died. When people go to Holy Wood to make “movie magic”, what could possibly go wrong, especially when there’s money to be made?

“Why is it all Mr. Dibbler’s films are set against the background of a world gone mad?” said the dwarf. Soll’s eyes narrowed. “Because Mr. Dibbler,” he growled, “is a very observant man.”

This is a great book and similar early good place to start if you want to skip the wizards and watchmen and witches. It is absolutely drenched in references to early cinema, and even if you’re only passingly familiar with that it’s fun to play spot-the-reference (and then after check the ones you missed), and I think it’s the best and funniest book in the first third of the series.

§The Truth (book 25)

William de Worde writes a newsletter for far-off important people, keeping them informed of the goings-on in the bustling city, and a chance encounter puts him in with some Dwarves who are turning lead into gold – by means of movable type – and de Worde starts a “news sheet” to expand his market to locals, and subsequently investigates a political conspiracy to overthrow the Patrician.

The young man is also an idealist. He has yet to find out that what’s in the public interest is not what the public is interested in.

Similarly to Going Postal, this book starts with a new character in the established world, and explains what it needs to as it goes; it also rewards a re-read for some great jokes about recurring series characters, but the book is quite enjoyable without that context. It’s only so far down this list because it’s helped a lot by contextual knowledge with Ankh-Morpork characters and the political relationship between city and the remote dwarvish government.

§Hogfather (book 20)

The Auditors of Reality hire an assassin to take out the Hogfather – the Disc’s equivalent of Santa Claus, and Death is afraid of the consequences. It’s time to recruit his granddaughter Susan, who’s working as a governess for young children, and answering questions like whether stories about the Hogfather are really true or not.

This book is well into the Death series, but it’s easily the best of those books and the context you’re missing from other books isn’t really that important if you don’t mind suspending your disbelief a bit for a story about what happens when paranormal auditors hire an assassin to kill Santa Claus. That the BBC adaptation (which is good and worth hunting down) exists supports this idea.

One of the common themes in Discworld is the idea that the reality we inhabit – the shared mental one that defines the box of the world we’re not supposed to think outside of – is made up of beliefs; and this book more than any other touches on that. There is a much-quoted passage that gives me chills every time I read it:

“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

“So we can believe the big ones?”

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

“They’re not the same at all!”

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”

MY POINT EXACTLY.

And yet, They’re both right. Susan is right because justice is not a lie in the same way Santa Claus is a lie; justice is something we can create, something we can strive for. Death’s point, however, remains that we often treat these ideas as intrinsic to the world, a natural force like gravity which begets quotes like the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice which is complete and utter baloney that I have seen people falling for my entire adult life – Justice is something that is made, by people.

A note on the audiobook: there is a character in this book who is the “Oh God” of hangovers, and the source of a lot of vomiting and nausea jokes; I was okay with this on my first read-through of the paper book, but listening to the audio book performance of this character by Sian Clifford was an experience that made me feel physically ill at times.

§Eric (Faust) (book 9)

Eric is a thirteen-year old demonologist, who just wants what any teenage boy would want: mastery of the kingdoms of the world, to meet the most beautiful woman who has ever lived, and to live forever. He tries to summon a demon, but instead summons Rincewind, who’s desperately trying to escape the Dungeon Dimensions after the ending of Sourcery. Eric’s going to get exactly what he wants, which is of course more than he bargained for.

The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that’s where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won’t do if they don’t know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight.

If you want to read the Rincewind books, you could do worse than start here. It’s a short take on – as indicated by the title – Faust, notably about being careful what you wish for, and the humor of the final stretch is highly reminiscent of Douglas Adams.

Rather than discuss the books in publication order, or try to invent yet another type of flow-chart to show book relationships, I’m mostly going to take the official series listing and present them in order of the mean rating I gave their books in my read-through with some finagling based on how well I think they help build up the world and characters to support other books.

§Tiffany Aching and the Young Witches

Coming in at the end of the series and marketed towards younger readers, the Tiffany Aching books are both consistently great and don’t assume much other context from other series, although the last book (which is the final Discworld novel) builds on world developments from the two previously-published books, Snuff and Raising Steam.

At the start of the first book, Tiffany Aching is a nine-year old whose brother was kidnapped by fairy creatures, and, impatient for the help a traveling witch promised to go and get, she sets out to rescue him armed with a frying pan, and the series sees her gain two years in age, and grow in ability and power to overcome a number of powerful adversaries with primarily non-violent means.

As a parent who has read this series to my child, a particular thing I appreciate about these books compared to, say, a popular series about a school for young magic users, is a de-emphasis on the fantastical and rather an emphasis on paying attention to the details of the mundane world around you:

“Exactly where can I find the school?” said Tiffany.

“To find the school for witches, go to a high place near here, climb to the top, open your eyes…” Miss Tick hesitated.

“Yes?”

“…and then open your eyes again.”

— The Wee Free Men

Think about it; this tells you everything about where the school for witches is, and in some respects is also the test on how to find it.

Tiffany got up early and lit the fires. When her mother came down, she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, very hard.

“Er… aren’t you supposed to do that sort of thing by magic, dear?” said her mother, who’d never really got the hang of what witchcraft was all about.

“No, Mum, I’m supposed not to,” said Tiffany, still scrubbing.

“But can’t you just wave your hand and make all the dirt fly away, then?”

“The trouble is getting the magic to understand what dirt is,” said Tiffany, scrubbing hard at a stain. “I heard of a witch over in Escrow who got it wrong and ended up losing the entire floor and her sandals and nearly a toe.”

Mrs. Aching backed away. “I thought you just had to wave your hands about,” she mumbled nervously.

“That works,” said Tiffany, “but only if you wave them about on the floor with a scrubbing brush.”

— Wintersmith

It’s not that I don’t think there’s a place for wonder, but this isn’t a series of books that try to make things seem magical because the jelly beans sometimes taste of earwax; rather, it’s a series about finding one’s own power and owning one’s own impact on the world, and how often that is mundane:

I’ll never be like this again … I’ll never again feel as tall as the sky and as old as the hills and as strong as the sea. I’ve been given something for a while, and the price of it is that I have to give it back. 

And the reward is giving it back, too. No human could live like this. You could spend a day looking at a flower to see how wonderful it is, and that wouldn’t get the milking done. No wonder we dream our way through our lives. To be awake, and see it all as it really is…no one could stand that for long.

— The Wee Free Men

I enjoyed all of these novels thoroughly – don’t let the marketing as “young adult” dissuade you from them.

The Wee Free Men • A Hat Full of Sky • Wintersmith • I Shall Wear Midnight • The Shepherd’s Crown

§Sam Vimes and the City Watch

It feels weird to recommend in the 2020s a series of books about what is essentially the formation of a city police force, and yet here I am doing so. It helps to remember that these are not books about policing in the United States; at the start of the series, the Night Watch are four people in a city of a million. These stories largely follow the format of old procedurals, typically center on a mystery to be uncovered, very much tout the importance of diversity & representation, and starting with Feet of Clay are all very morally-oriented books which center on ethics, justice, and ideals of fairness and equality.

Sam Vimes starts the series as the alcoholic captain of the city’s dilapidated night watch, and by the end of it is the teetotaling commander of a police force which has become the model for the surrounding area. He is quite cynical, which helps with balancing his role as defender of the status quo in the name of the law and challenger of the status quo in the name of justice.

“Commander, I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you.”

“Sir?”

“It seems that you have managed to retain this even though you are authority.”

“Sir?”

“That’s practically zen.”

— Feet of Clay

It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn’t then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of then going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people.

— Jingo

They’re also the best source of a lot of context for other books. They’re centered in the city of Ankh-Morpork (but visit other locales), and nearly all the other sub-series visit the city at some point, and typically the Watch are involved in that visit. You can, of course, pick that up elsewhere or do without.

These books also introduces the famous Vimes boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness:

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

— Men at Arms

I found the first two books enjoyable and the rest either great or amazingly great.

Guards! Guards! • Men at Arms • Feet of Clay • Jingo • The Fifth Elephant • Night Watch • Thud! • Snuff

§The Industrial Revolution and Moist von Lipwig

Discworld evolves, and about halfway through the series, Pratchett decided to accelerate that. These books largely deal with introducing technology and ideas we tend to think of as more modern into a fantasy setting replete with fairies and living rock people and magic. The first three are all easily stand-alone books (though both The Truth and Monstrous Regiment benefit from context introduced in earlier books, the Watch series most notably), and the latter three focus on a new character: Moist von Lipwig, a conman whose skills are put towards public service.

“A banker? Me?”

“Yes, Mr. Lipwig.”

“But I don’t know anything about running a bank!”

“Good. No preconceived ideas.”

“I’ve robbed banks!”

“Capital! Just reverse your thinking,” said Lord Vetinari, beaming. “The money should be on the inside.”

— Making Money

The aristocrats, if such they could be called, generally hated the whole concept of the train on the basis that it would encourage the lower classes to move about and not always be available.

— Raising Steam

I love all of these books except for Making Money, which I felt a bit too scattered and whose ending undercut its larger commentary about finance.

Moving Pictures • The Truth • Monstrous Regiment • Going Postal • Making Money • Raising Steam

§Granny Weatherwax and the Witches

Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax is the leader that witches would have if witches had a leader. They don’t have head witches – Granny Weatherwax wouldn’t allow that sort of thing. She’s a crotchety traditionalist who distrusts books, cities, fancy talk, and material possessions; but she’s an eminently practical, moral, and clever person who – while extremely skilled at magic, prefers instead using headology when possible. Her friend Gytha (Nanny) Ogg is in many ways her opposite: down-to-earth, kind (to anyone outside her family, at least), bawdy, and never one to pass on food or a drink (and often providing the drink) and perhaps more clever than Granny Weatherwax, but also clever enough not to let on.

The trouble is, you see, that if you do know Right from Wrong, you can’t choose Wrong. You just can’t do it and live. So.. if I was a bad witch I could make Mister Salzella’s muscles turn against his bones and break them where he stood… if I was bad. I could do things inside his head, change the shape he thinks he is, and he’d be down on what had been his knees and begging to be turned into a frog… if I was bad. I could leave him with a mind like a scrambled egg, listening to colors and hearing smells…if I was bad. Oh yes.” There was another sigh, deeper and more heartfelt. “But I can’t do none of that stuff. That wouldn’t be Right”

— Maskerade

“There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example,” said Oats.

“And what do they think? Against it, are they?” said Granny Weatherwax.

“It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.”

“Nope.”

“Pardon?”

“There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that—”

“No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”

“Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes—”

“But they starts with thinking about people as things…”

– Carpe Jugulum

I enjoyed all of these books, but they’re all written before I think Pratchett really found his fire, and found a successor for the witches series in Tiffany Aching. They are still very much worth reading, especially for character context if you’re an adult planning to read the Tiffany Aching books.

I do have to note that while Nanny Ogg is a good character and seems like a wonderful personality, her portrayal as the matriarch of the Ogg family is tyranically abusive towards her family and especially anyone unlucky enough to marry into it. It’s played for jokes because the characterization happened in the ’80s and the books are largely written in the ’90s, but it works against her character, this series, and even the portrayal of Lord Vetinari’s tyranny over Ankh-Morpork.

The witches are largely centered in the small mountain kingdom of Lancre, rich in magic, but they travel to other parts of the disc as well.

Equal Rites • Wyrd Sisters • Witches Abroad • Lords and Ladies • Maskerade • Carpe Jugulum

§Death and the Paranatural

Death is a skeletal figure in black robes who carries a scythe, because that’s what people believe the figure of Death should be. He (sigh, Death first appeared in The Color of Magic and Mort was published in 1987, and while I do remember reading about sie/hir and such in the ’90s, Death the Grim Reaper is represented as male – presumably because, well, that’s what people believe about Death) lives in a manor outside time, rides a white horse named Binky, has a manservant named Albert and a granddaughter named Susan, and takes an interest in his charges a bit more than the universe would like him to.

Death is a great character and a highlight of every book he appears in (which is nearly all of them) and Susan is an amazingly great character, I found their books not quite as satisfying as the previously-listed sub-series, despite that they make some of the best points about what it means to be human.

Susan hated Literature. She’d much prefer to read a good book.

— Soul Music

“Just a minute,” said Lobsang. “Who are you? Time has stopped, the world is given over to…fairy tales and monsters, and there’s a schoolteacher walking around?”

“Best kind of person to have,” said Susan. “We don’t like silliness. Anyway, I told you. I’ve inherited certain talents.”

“Like living outside of time?”

“That’s one of them.”

“It’s a weird talent for a schoolteacher!”

“Good for marking, though,” said Susan calmly.

— Thief of Time

The second audiobook releases are a great experience thanks to extended outstanding performances by Peter Serafinowicz as the voice of Death. He’s in nearly all of the novels in this capacity, but you get a lot more those performances here.

Mort • Reaper Man • Soul Music • Hogfather • Thief of Time

§Rincewind and the Wizards

Rincewind is a cowardly “wizzard” (sic) who can’t do magic, and whose talents include getting into scary situations and getting out of them. He’s a one-joke character: he’s a coward who runs away from things. These books are largely parodies, starting with more traditional fantasy novels and progressing into, well, a bunch of jokes about Australia.

The last two of these books are really good, but largely because they don’t center themselves on Rincewind.

The saving grace for the earlier books are its supporting characters:

• The Luggage, a chest of sapient pearwood with hundreds of legs

• The Librarian, a human turned into an orangutan in a magical accident and would prefer to keep it that way

• Mustrum Ridcully, introduced in Moving Pictures as the latest Archchancellor of Unseen University, who plays as foil to the faculty

• Ponder Stibbons, introduced as a student in Moving Pictures and later becomes head of Inadvisably Applied Magic, who creates Hex, the Disc’s first computer

Any true wizard, faced with a sign like ‘Do not open this door. Really. We mean it. We’re not kidding. Opening this door will mean the end of the universe,’ would automatically open the door in order to see what all the fuss is about. This made signs rather a waste of time, but at least it meant that when you handed what was left of the wizard to his grieving relatives you could say, as they grasped the jar, ‘We told him not to.’

— The Last Continent

The wizards generally feature heavily in the Death series, and occasionally in other books in Ankh-Morpork, such as Thud! and Making Money, but you can pick up on what you need to from those books just fine.

They’re also the books that cover the most locales on Discworld; if you find yourself looking at a map of Discworld and wonder “what’s that place, I haven’t heard of it yet?”, chances are Rincewind visited it at some point.

The Colour of Magic • The Light Fantastic • Sourcery • Eric / Faust • Interesting Times • The Last Continent • The Last Hero • Unseen Academicals

§Ancient Civilizations

Some descriptions of the books in the series put Pyramids and Small Gods together under an Ancient Civilizations series, but Pyramids deals with the weight of culture and Small Gods is the only book to eschew publication-order chronology and is officially set some time long ago; other than that they don’t have much in common.

“The diameter divides into the circumference, you know. It ought to be three times. You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But does it? No. Three point one four one and lots of other figures. There’s no end to the buggers. Do you know how pissed off that makes me?”

“I expect it makes you extremely pissed off,” said Teppic politely.

“Right. It tells me that the Creator used the wrong kind of circles. It’s not even a proper number! I mean, three point five, you could respect. Or three point three. That’d look right.” He stared morosely at the pie.”

— Pyramids

“The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.”

— Small Gods

While I enjoyed both of these books, and while they do both stand alone, I don’t feel like either of them are necessarily good enough to make for a satisfactory introduction to Discworld.

Pyramids • Small Gods