‘The Colour of Magic’ – Terry Pratchett (Corgi)

Page Count: 285 Pages.

It’s not often that I pick up a ‘Discworld’ book these days; nothing against ‘em but I have developed a habit of buying loads of other books and then feeling guilty that I’m not reading them. I really should do something about that, shouldn’t I…? Maybe one day…

That’s the way things usually go but with a nasty case of readers block happening, and a week that’s swiftly shaping up to be one of those weeks. I wanted some comfort reading and something that would make me laugh a bit (I really need a laugh…) Terry Pratchett and ‘Discworld’ it was then. I’m not going to go through the whole series (and not just because I gave my original copies away), just pick out a few that I haven’t read it in a while, and with that said, where better place to start than at the beginning? Lets talk about ‘The Colour of Magic’…

On a world supported on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown), a gleeful, explosive, wickedly eccentric expedition sets out. There’s an avaricious but inept wizard, a naive tourist whose luggage moves on hundreds of dear little legs, dragons who only exist if you believe in them, and of course, THE EDGE of the planet…

I’ll be honest. The Colour of Magic’ isn’t my favourite ‘Discworld’ read; it’s not as ‘laugh out loud funny’ as the rest and there’s a bit at the end that I could never get my head round in terms of where the characters are placed and what they do next (it’s a tiny thing but it bugs me). I was actually going to start with ‘The Light Fantastic’ but it felt a little weird skipping ‘The Colour of Magic’, and it had been a long time since I’d read it, so here we are and you know what? It’s still not the book that I’d recommend to anyone starting the ‘Discworld’ series (and that changes most days so I’m not getting into that here) but it’s still a bloody good read and I’m really glad that I gave it another go.

The humour is very much there, just not as in your face like it is in later books. There’s a lot of observational humour here, along the lines of how while fantasy fiction deserves to be taken seriously, maybe it takes itself a little too seriously (which isn’t a bad thing but when you take yourself too seriously, you invite a little ridicule). Pratchett has a little dig here and there but you can tell that it comes from a real place of love for the genre and from someone who clearly knows his stuff and we should bear that in mind (if you know what I mean). He’s not only inviting the reader to laugh at his observations but also to give them a little serious consideration at the same time. In that respect, ‘The Colour of Magic’ is a far more engaging book than I’ve ever really given it credit for. And yeah, I’m chuckling more than belly laughing these days but that just means those observations of his are still relevant and have real staying power.

And it is still fun, even after all these years, to follow Rincewind and Twoflower through a seemingly never ending series of misadventures; Twoflower’s relentless optimism and faith in people is inspiring but luckily, we have Rincewind’s inherent cowardice and belief, that every stranger is a bastard that he hasn’t met yet, to balance things out. And it does, although is that a tiny bit of something heroic that I see in Rincewind…?

Not so much a review then, more a case of my coming back to ‘The Colour of Magic’ (after a long break) and realising that there is a lot more to it than I first thought. It goes without saying that after I started reading, I couldn’t put the book down until I’d finished it. I don’t know how far I’ll get, with the series, until other books make a case to be read next but for now, my next read is very definitely ‘The Light Fantastic’.