What’s the Color of Magic?

Title : The Color of Magic

Author : Terry Pratchett

Type : Fiction

Rating : 4 of 5 Stars

The Discworld is a wonderful satire of our own world in many ways. The Color of Magic is the beginning of this hilarious journey and as Terry Pratchett quotes, “There are no maps. You cannot map a sense of humor”.

It’s an imaginary world. While Tolkien was brutal and murderous with his Middle Earth, Discworld in contrast represents the dark comedy to fantasy. Everything is seriously funny in here yet the characters don’t take their so-called adventures with humor in the book – it is serious stuff for them (the characters) you see, and that’s the way the dice rolls in Discworld.

In a nutshell, it is like Earth as we know it but with our fantasy add-ons thrown in. Nothing dissimilar to other sci-fi fantasy tales but this one is really really funny! Anyway, the plot is simple but intricate nonetheless. Did I say funny? Well there you go – it’s comedy at its hilarious best. Terry Pratchett was cunningly intelligent in his narration too. What started out as confusion soon unraveled itself rather concisely and you snigger and grin at its simplicity at the end.

This is the first of the Discworld chronicles (and my 2nd venture into it). There are plenty more to read and catch up with on Discworld. Unfortunately, not all Pratchett work is available in Malaysian bookstores but I’ve already laid my hands on his 21^st series – Jingo. Okay, what a jump from number one to twenty-one you ask? Well, herein explains Pratchett talent and ‘wisdom’ – you can read his books, individually, on their own and in random order according to some critiques. And since I’ve now read The Color of Magic and Jingo concurrently,  I can vouch for that claim as well. They were two separate stories but yet somehow you could relate one with the other. Nice.

Here are my last words – “Read every one of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series; in chronological order or otherwise. It matters not. I heard they are all good but some are very very good ”.

My other recent book reviews

• Jingo – Terry Pratchett
• The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide – Douglas Adams

Related articles

• Journey to the edge of the disc – a tale of magic, friendship and buffoonery (motleychronicles.com)
• Honey Get the Luggage, I’m Going to Discworld (literarytiger.wordpress.com)
• Book Review: The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett (thebookaddictblog.wordpress.com)
• No offence to all you discworld wizards (thebookaddictblog.wordpress.com)
• Review: Mort, by Terry Pratchett (janetsketchley2.wordpress.com)
• Discworld Roleplaying Bibliography (gmkeros.wordpress.com)