The Colour of Magic

Eternally grateful that this book exists and launched my favorite fantasy series.

It is entertaining and worth it if you're familiar with a lot of standard fantasy tropes and want to have a laugh. I thought of it as a Hitchhiker's Guide for the fantasy set.

It is like a twisted game of D&D where the player characters don't know they are playing a game. It's really four novellas stuck together, telling the stories of Rincewind and his charge, Twoflower who are taking a tour around the Disc.

Twoflower is a clerk from “foreign parts,” desperately seeks to escape his office rut and have a little adventure in the metropolis of Ankh-Morpork, where the heroes and villains of his fantasies reside. Rincewind, would-be-wizard and academic failure of Unseen University, has to either keep Twoflower unharmed or incur the wrath of the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. Of course the journey with Twoflower might also kill him.

It's interesting to see the genesis of some characters/elements of the Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, Octarine, The Great A'tuin, Vetinari, Death and so on. Also the Luggage, who is a horrifying monster, yet practical carrying device, and frequent deus ex machina for the travelers.

If you want to read some Discworld, it's not necessary (or even recommended) to start with the Colour of Magic. Most readers suggest going for a subseries and reading from there. Guards! Guards! or Wyrd Sisters are a great introduction to the Nightwatch/Witches subseries respectively. These are where I started. The characters in those books have a little more depth to sink your teeth into and the humor gets better as well. But Colour of Magic is still a lot of fun.