Review: The Colour of Magic
I fell in love with this author by the second paragraph. Here is a delightful satirical writing style, full of humour and eloquent in its execution. It’s clear right away if you are going to connect with the dry wit and the prose so beautifully crowded with lighthearted potshots at humanity.
The first of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, this novel plays with conventional ideas about the world, especially mythological archetypes and their use in the sword and sorcery fantasy genre. His tongue-in-cheek physics adds a pinch of Sci-Fi to the mix. The Color of Magic is often compared to Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for its humour but is written with more finesse.
It lightened my heart to read this book. Surges of delight from the clever turns of phrase alternated with laughter as I read along. I particularly enjoyed this satire of fantasy because I am fascinated with the concept of reality and all its interpretations.
Here is a snippet of Pratchett's description of a wizard appearing out of thin air, an effect you might experience in a movie:
“Now the turning wizard was half man-size. At that point the growth was faster, there was a sudden crowded moment, a rush of air, and an explosion of sound. Rincewind tumbled out of the air, screaming. He hit the floor hard, choked, then rolled over with his head cradled in his arms and his body curled up tightly."
Birds are shown to carry messages, and a few pages later a man about to dispatch a message approaches a cage of white doves. But there are other cages there, and, “From one cage he removed a glossy coated rat, rolled the parchment into the phial attached to a hind leg, and let the animal go. It sniffed around the floor for a moment, then disappeared down a hole in the far wall.” The image of rats scurrying through underground tunnels with notes tied to their rear legs fits well into this city in a world of scoundrels.
Terry Pratchett obviously had a great time writing these books. He was a masterful writer and it's easy to see why so many have had fun reading the Discworld series. I thoroughly enjoyed The Color Of Magic and am on to read The Light Fantastic.
I mentioned this review in a blog post here: https://habyrd.com/blog/important-message.html
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...
The wackiest and most original fantasy since Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE (1948–2015) was an English author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of about 40 volumes. Pratchett's first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971, and since his first Discworld novel (The Colour of Magic) was published in 1983, he wrote two books a year on average. His 2011 Discworld novel Snuff was at the time of its release the third-fastest-selling hardback adult-audience novel since records began in the UK, selling 55,000 copies in the first three days.
Pratchett was the UK's best-selling author of the 1990s, and has sold more than 85 million books worldwide in 37 languages. He is currently the second most-read ... (more)
