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I count about 7 there…
Thank you OneOfMany. I’m still new to the series, so I probably don’t have much of a chance of catching up here…
OneOfMany- How did you guess? I saw so many people liked the series here, I decided it must be worth a try. My local library had it available. I didn’t have to spend any money on it…
Gold & collecting taxes from wizards.
I’ve got one in the spelling errors thread…
The trouble I get into for this- I wonder sometimes if it’s worth it.
I’ve got one in the spelling errors thread…
The trouble I get into for this- I wonder sometimes if it’s worth it.
Also in the Nine Days meals thread
Okay, not a reference, but I was just rereading the thread, noticing that the Neverwhere radio play was mentioned, and feeling duty-bound to report that it is available on YouTube.
It is amazing. Mamesh amazing. Really good distraction from packing for camp.
Hello everybody! Don’t be offended, but I can’t yet admit to being a member of this fine establishment, as I haven’t even read any Discworld books yet.
But that’s why I’m here. I want to be.
Can anybody tell me what the VERY FIRST Discworld book is so I can start the series from book 1? I’m curious because I don’t want to get confused starting at some random point in the series.
Does it help that I know what a wee freeman looks like?
Check an earlier page of this thread for recommended reading orders. DO NOT start with the first book. The series is NOT linear- there are much better places to start from. I personally recommend starting with either Mort (the Death arc) or Guards, Guards (the Watch arc). But for a better explanation, go a few pages back.
ENJOY!
Thanks, writersoul. 🙂 I am probably going to have a hard time resisting the urge to start with book one, but I definitely want to read Death’s stories. (I only heard of Discworld after someone mentioned the character Death to me.)
Hi all. For this thread ive got to stop lurking. Ive read all the discworld books so far. Favorite is probably soul music or thief of time
Bookworm: The books only get better, and the Death arc and the first book have basically nothing in common. Mort, the first Death book, is actually the fourth Discworld book- early enough that it provides a LOT of background information about the Discworld universe (multiverse, whatever). I’d suggest starting from there, and subsequently continuing with the Death arc. By the time you’ve finished it, you’ll have a great grasp of Discworld. (It’s actually my favorite story arc and the way I started.)
secretagentyid: I actually also delurked for this thread!
If you’ve read all of them, does that mean you read Raising Steam? I’m trying to decide whether to read it- is it any good?
Anyone else know?
@writersoul – I will try that! 😀 Question: is there any inappropriate stuff that I should be aware of? Cassandra Clare’s Infernal Devices books, for example, made me feel sick, so that’s where I stand when it comes to maturity. As for violence, I survived Lord of the Rings (all 1,000+ pages of it) and then the movies without any lasting trauma. I thought I heard that some of Pratchett’s books have some strong language, but if it isn’t of an immoral nature, I shouldn’t mind too much.
@secretagentyid – Welcome, although I can’t exactly express it on behalf of the club yet. 🙂
Bookworm: Definitely no violence. (For the record, I love the LotR books but turned off the movies because the battle scenes and creatures were disgusting, FWIW.) There is, well, innuendo and some language. I’ve never read Infernal Devices, so I can’t compare, but there are people here who will read Discworld and not Hitchhiker’s Guide. (I’m not sure why, but there you go.)
I think this comes up earlier in the thread- I’d suggest reading through it for a pretty good (if somewhat long…) idea of what Discworld is about.
@writerwoul – Whew! The movies were definitely a bit intense, yes. I found what I read of the innuendo in Hitchhiker’s Guide to be a bit much, so I’m assuming Discworld is either equally suggestive or less so. (Or worse?)
Thanks – I do need to comb through this entire thread before I give it a sixth page! 😛
@writersoul–good to know I’m not the only one! I must confess though, i haven’t yet read raising steam :/
@bookworm–he does sometimes use strong language, but never explicit imagery, although the connotations are there
I’m actually in the middle of a massive readthrough of the Guide and I think that any touchy content is presented in a very different way, which is why I really don’t get any comparisons between it and Discworld.
secretagentyid: I keep hearing that it’s not very good- and if it’s anything like Snuff was then I will get a bit nervous. I mean, there’s the whole matter of waiting for my library to get hold of it, but…
Offhand remark apropos to nothing: Anyone read Dodger and feel a bit… odd afterward? As far as Solomon is concerned?
So I recently read the first two Discworld books. My reaction is, to quote Aristotle (Metaphysics Book VIII Part Six), “In the case of all things which have several parts and in which the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something beside the parts, there is a cause; for even in bodies contact is the cause of unity in some cases, and in others viscosity or some other such quality.”
The individual parts of the books were really good, but when put together they didn’t create the magnificent edifice I was expecting. There didn’t seem to be any unified whole. That is not to say that I didn’t like the books; I’ll probably end up reading more of them.
One thing that I’m confused about is that throughout both books it seems as if the Discworld is an entire world and that Twoflower is simply from a different part of the world:
“Where is your home?” he inquired…
“Have you heard of the city of Bes Palargic?… Bes Palargic is the major seaport of the Agatean Empire… You sail turnwise from the Brown Islands for about a week and there it is.”
Yet Twoflower is described as “the first tourist ever to set foot on the Discworld” implying that he is from a different world.
I must be really rusty – I messed up the blockquote in this thread also. The end of my previous post should be:
“Where is your home?” he inquired…
“Have you heard of the city of Bes Palargic?… Bes Palargic is the major seaport of the Agatean Empire… You sail turnwise from the Brown Islands for about a week and there it is.”
Yet Twoflower is described as “the first tourist ever to set foot on the Discworld” implying that he is from a different world.
paa: the first two books are very different than all his other books, dont pass judgment on the rest of his books from the first two. his other discworld books flow much better and everything is related.
from the other discworld books, it is clear that the discworld is the ‘planet’ that is flat, and it includes all the characters in the books (except for maybe death and the auditors, who would be in the “discworld universe”).
So why is Twoflower described as the first tourist to come to Discworld? He should be described as the first tourist to come to Ankh-Morpork.
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