Ok i was almost forced to read the colour of magic by terry pratchett, i read the first page and was confused, the whole book was realy confusing and way it was written was really complicated (to me anyway) at the end i sort of understood it and they fell off the edge of the world.
Oncce i had read it i was told that after reading that i needed to read the second one called the light fantastic, after avoiding it for a while i just decided to read it, i couldnt tell you what it was about, but i read it.
has anyone elce read any of his books or had the same problem i did reading them or have anything to say about his books at all?
(i might have been exagerating a bit about not compleatly understanding, i gathered what it was all about after reading very carefully)
I never did like the Discworld books, or Pratchett's writing style in general. For some reason, he always seemed as if he was trying too hard to be deliberately funny - Not a good writing tactic.
I don't see what there is to not understand - He explains everything in a droll, slow, sarcastic manner that anyone can pick up and read.
The problem with Pratchett books is that at first he was riding a fantasy wave - he wrote some comedic fantasy, and that was hot at the time, and so it sold. Colour of Magic etc. aren't actually that good. His later books are much more well-thought out and more entertaining - after he's actually learnt to write properly.
What I do love about them, though, is that if you read them at different stages of your life you get more of the jokes. A lot of them are in-references to comedic canon or the canon of the parody - in one of them, for example, the Necrotelecomnicon is the book of 'calling up' the dead. I only got it after about the third read-through. One of my favourite passages, however (and one that I committed to memory) runs somewhat as follows:
[quote]One day the apprentice Clodpool, in a ponderous mood, approached Wen the Eternally Surprised and spake thusly:
"Master, what is the difference between a monastic, faith-based system of belief through which wisdom is sought through a method of questions and answers, and a load of mystical gibberish simply made up on the spur of the moment?"
Wen considered this for some time, and at last said, "A fish!" and Clodpool went away, satisfied.
So, yeah. The first Pratchett book I read was Hogfather, but unless you pick up stories quickly you might not want to start there. Since you already know about Rincewind, try Eric (a nice short one), or The Last Continent.
As a stand-alone book, The Wee Free Men is wonderful, but by far my favourites have been the most recent Watch books (Thud! and Night Watch), as well as Thief of Time, one of my top ten books ever.
Just steer clear of Monstrous Regiment. The whole book was too much set-up for an obvious punchline, I thought.
Reminded me too much of Douglas Adams at certain points. But yeah, I can understand him without any problems. There's been a few parts I had to read over a couple times, but nothing that left me confused.
I love Terry Pratchett's work; I personally prefer it to Douglas Adams. I've just read The Science Of Discworld II and discovered that his books actually have a deeper meaning than random humour!
My personal favourites would have the be the Night Watch/Rincewind books. Monstrous Regiment was a bit of a disappointment, but his recent work has generally been very good.
If you don't really understand the first two but you're still interested, you probably should move on to his later, more structured books. You don't seem like the kind of person who'd get some of the more subtle in-jokes, so yeah...
I haven't heard of any of his novels, but I think I'll check them out sometime. I should probably check out Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy while I'm at it.
What I love about Adams is while there's randomness in there, he somehow manages to tie it into everything very well.
wings- i saw the book eric you were on about up there and i brought it, it actually looks quite good, i'll read it and tell you what i think.
I also read the jonny and the dead, jonny and the bomb and only you can save mankind when i was younger but i never realised that terry pratchett wrote them, they are not like his other books at all, i didn't think they were that good, what do you think of them?
Same could be said for Pratchett.