The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

The Colour of Magic is the first of many in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, and I have been desperate to read it for ages. However, I refuse to buy books full price when I know I can get them in a second-hand book shop, or in a library. You can call me a typical Scot for that, but I just call it good sense, and supporting these quirky little musty-smelling book shops I love so much. Anyway, I found it much more difficult to get my hands on this particular book than I’d anticipated, but I was eventually found in my local library. Needless to say, I took it out as soon as I got the chance.
The Colour of Magic is a bit of a strange book, and is really made up of four shorter stories that fit together to form a larger one, all about the travelling sand misadventures of Rincewind, a wizard who knows only one spell but is unable to perform it, and Twoflower, a ridiculously naive tourist. There are plenty of other characters, but those are the only main ones. The book is set on the Discworld, a planet in the shape of a flat disc, which rests on top of four giant elephants, which stand on the back of an enormous turtle, which swims through space. You don’t realise just how weird that sounds until you say it aloud.
Although the book has several very weird and slightly random aspects, such as a talking sword, dragons that only exist if you believe in them, an upside-down mountain and a king who is neither dead nor alive (and that’s just taken from one story) it doesn’t feel weird when you’re reading it. I must admit that there was a point when I put the book down and said the word “What!?!?” several times, but I understand it now. I think. To be fair, I get confused with lots of books – I’m still not clear on what happened to Gandalf after he was battling with the Balrog.
I found the book funny throughout reading it, or witty might be a better word. It’s not so much laugh-out-loud funny, as cleverly subtle wit. The “Big Bang Hypothesis” really made me laugh, for example. If you’re curious, I recommend reading it – it’s in the prologue, so it’s possible to read while still in the book shop.
I loved this book, and I can’t wait to read the second one. It is now fair to say that I love Terry Pratchett – the man is a genius. I recommend this to fans if clever wit and quirky tales with fun and believable characters.