The Colour of Magic

Written in 1983, this book created a whole new genre and began a series that now includes 63 books.

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It's a work of fantasy comedy that is set on a flat world that rests on the back of four elephants who are riding on the back of a giant turtle. It follows a terrible, uncertified wizard, a tourist, and his sentient, deadly Luggage on a series of wild predicaments that take them to various portions of Discworld.

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I understand the cultural significance of this work (a computer game was made of it in 1986, a graphic novel was made in 1992, and a mini-series was made in 2008), but I didn’t like it very much. I did chuckle at the absurdity of events and the turn of a phrase more than a few times, but something about the over-wrought language and the sameness of the tone made me have to force myself to finish this.

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The sudden departure of several quintillion atoms from a universe that they had no right to be in anyway caused a wild imbalance in the harmony of the Sum Totality which it tried frantically to retrieve, wiping out a number of sub-realities in the process. Huge surges of raw magic boiled uncontrolled around the very foundations of the multiverse itself, welling up through every crevice into hitherto peaceful dimensions and causing novas, supernovas, stellar collisions, wild flights of geese and drowning of imaginary continents. Worlds as far away as the other end of time experienced brilliant sunsets of coruscating octarine as highly charged magical particles roared through the atmosphere.

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The two gents find themselves in situation after situation where surely they will be killed, but somehow a dragon manifests, or a troll steps out of the Luggage, or a talking, hero-making sword ends up in the wizard’s hand and they escape one adventure to find themselves in a new one. I found it tiresome, honestly, but I think my enjoyment of it was further hampered by poor formatting on the part of the Kindle.

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All that said, I think this story would be excellent to read to kids. In every bite-sized piece of a chapter there is adventure and silly ideas that are fun to imagine (like the Circumfence that catches flotsam from falling over the edge of the world, and the mountain, Wyrmberg, that is upside down).

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'Death couldn't come,' said the demon wretchedly. 'There's a big plague on in Pseudopolis. He had to go and stalk the streets. So he sent me.’

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'No-one dies of scrofula! I've got rights. I'm a wizard!’

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'All right, all right. This was going to be my big chance,' said Scrofula, 'but look at it this way – if I hit you with this scythe you'll be just as dead as you would be if Death had done it. Who'd know?’

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'I'd know!' snapped Rincewind.

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'You wouldn't. You'd be dead,' said Scrofula logically.

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'Piss off,' said Rincewind.

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It has been written that this book might not be the best introduction to the Discworld series, so I will read another one to give the series another chance.

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I do appreciate the powerful, wacky imagination of Terry Pratchett, but I can't recommend this book except to die-hards of cosy fantasy.

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