• jjagaimo@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    Why give them unique shapes in the legend and then proceed to NOT use them in the actual diagram? ,`:•|

  • MelodiousFunk@startrek.website
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    9 months ago

    I’m one of those heathens that read through for the first time in publication order. The ancient civilization side trips were a bit disorienting at first but I managed.

    • BestBouclettes@jlai.lu
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      9 months ago

      You can do whatever I think, either read them by series (rincewind, witches, city guard, etc.) or by publishing order, starting with the colour of magic.

    • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      There’s a lot of opinions on this. I found Small Gods to be a good jumping in place because it’s a stand alone book and late enough that he had found the tone he wanted for the series. But a lot of other people recommend picking a subseries and starting with the first book there. The Vimes books are very popular so a lot of people recommend Guards, Guards as a starting point.

      The reason a lot of people don’t recommend publishing order is that the first two books are written in a very different style to the later ones. They’re pretty straight parodies of heroic fantasy. But Pratchett becomes so much more later.

    • FenrirIII@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Witches look self-contained. For the rest, pick a group and read up to before the series crossover, then proceed to the next series’s starting book

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Witches aren’t bad to start it’s where I did. But I recommend ending with Tiffany Aching. The shepherds crown wasn’t intended to be the final book, he was writing until he died and would’ve kept going if he could’ve, but it is the perfect final book.

        I’d say start with Rincewind, Witches, or Death. City Watch is good too but it’ll hit you hard with Industrial Revolution stuff and is very much the story of the world progressing as people try to deal with it.

        • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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          9 months ago

          I recommend ending with Tiffany Aching.

          I heartily agree. It reads like a beautiful capstone on Sir Terry Pratchett’s life’s work.

    • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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      9 months ago

      The books represented by the orange dots are typically recommended starting points between fans. They start some of the more popular longer running character arcs.

      That said, every book is a solid stand-alone story. No story requires reading more than the book it is in.

      • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        That said, every book is a solid stand-alone story. No story requires reading more than the book it is in.

        Yeah, I will mention that at the time I started reading them, availability of the series in the US was pretty spotty so I read a lot of the books out of order. I didn’t find it impacted my enjoyment. Some of the later books have more continuity, particularly the later watch books, but I think the majority of them could be read in any order without too much problem.

    • revelrous@sopuli.xyz
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      9 months ago

      What kinds of books do you like? Different ‘series’ have different connecting themes and are asking different sorts of questions. Any types of themes in stories you are drawn to?

  • Neato@ttrpg.network
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    9 months ago

    I was the weird one and started with The Color of Magic and didn’t regret it. Weird Pratchett advised to skip 2 of his own books.

    • alex [they, il]@jlai.lu
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      9 months ago

      I think starting with Color of Magic is just fine, IF you know and enjoy classic heroic fantasy. Otherwise it’s very hard to enjoy without understanding what tropes it’s mocking.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      They’re very different from the rest so it makes sense. IMO you’ve really got 4 eras: The first two, the era where he’s got an idea of what he wants but it’s still forming and being explored (pre industrial, lots of new stuff, characters change a lot as he explores them), his stride (longer series, less satirical, beginning to display his feelings on people as a whole), and then the embuggerance books (frustrated and powerful stories that leave very little of himself held back). They definitely bleed into each other, but there’s a reason Snuff feels a lot more like I Shall Wear Midnight in tone than it does to Guards Guards.

      I think what he’s really saying is “don’t start with the books that came with an assumption that this was a one off parody, start where it’s being written as a series meant to evolve, then when you have a feel for it go read them”

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      I also read them in Roundworld chronological order and was thrilled with them, but looking back as an adult I can see where the guy who wrote Thud! and Dodger might not be entirely proud of the first couple.

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      my personal favorite after decades of dedicated fandom, and self-contained enough that it’s one I recommend everyone start with.

    • TheCaconym [any]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      It’s good right up until the last two books or so (thinking specifically of Snuff, but also Raising Steam here), where Vimes becomes a complete parody of himself, and there is also a large drop in quality.

      Maybe Pratchett’s disease had something to do with it.

      • huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        9 months ago

        raising steam was disjointed and its second half felt like a farewell to the discworld. and yeah, snuff is just a rambling mess.

  • Skelectus@suppo.fi
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    9 months ago

    Funny how you made this post now. I decided to get into Discworld very recently and finished Mort just the day before.

    • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Basically, while all of the novels take place in the discworld, different books in the series focus on different groups of characters, making it so that there are different subseries within the series. A lot of people choose to read the subseries in order instead of going through the books in publication order. This is also because the first two books, while not bad, have a very different tone from the later books. They’re kind of straight parodies of heroic fantasy rather than being more focused on the unique setting and characters within the discworld.

      So most people would recommend starting with one of the major subseries. The city watch books start with Guards Guards (this is probably the most popular subseries). The witches start with Equal Rites. Death starts with Mort. And Rincewind starts with The Color of Magic. Or you could pick one of the stand alone books to get a taste of Pratchett’s style without continuity. Small Gods is probably the best choice for this IMO.

  • NOFF@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I grabbed the humble book bundle a while ago, so this will be really useful. Thanks.

    Edit: what category are the purple books?

    • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      The Tiffany Aching books are a young adult subseries that spins off from the witches series. Very much worth reading even if you’re not huge on YA stuff, especially since they essentially finish off the witches storyline.

    • reattach@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      As others have said “Young Adult,” but they’re not significantly different from the rest of the series imo. Protagonist in most is a child versus adults as in the rest of the books and they lack the off-color jokes and occasional swearing of the main series. Stories in the YA novels are about the same level of complexity as the others, and the violence is about the same, too.

      One reader’s opinion.

  • ME5SENGER_24@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Don’t kill me but I finally started reading Discworld. I saw this image and after reading some posts I ended up reading Guards! Guards! It was great and can’t wait to read another