Badbartopia

Dandy
Friday, 3/13/2015 8:37 AM

Yeah, I thought of you when I read this yesterday. I remember what a big fan you were. Sorry.

I've never had the pleasure of reading any of his stuff, but if you were to recommend one book to start with, which would it be?

bart
Friday, 3/13/2015 1:24 PM

The Colour of Magic is where I started, but isn't nearly as good as his later Disc World books. That being said, it's still really good. Nation is really good, too. I've got them all if you want to borrow any of them.

bart
Friday, 3/13/2015 4:31 PM

Or if you want something more SCIFi (and less comical), you could try the recent series he was co-writing with Stephen Baxter (The Long Earth/Long Mars books). They're not as Pratchetty as the others, but still very enjoyable. And speaking of co-authored books, Good Omens was a collaboration between Neil and Terry and is also a great read.

Dandy
Monday, 3/16/2015 8:29 AM

Man, ask for a recommendation for 1 book, and get a list...

I actually have Good Omens, as well as one of the later Disc World books, Snuff, that I picked up used somewhere. I understand that with the Disc World books, they are each standalone, is that correct? Or do you recommend reading them in order?

bartski
Monday, 3/16/2015 9:05 AM

You can read most of the DiscWorld books individually, but they will probably make more sense if you read them in order because you will understand the origins/development of the main characters in the story and the customs/geographical references (Ankh-Morpork is pretty much England, Uberwald is eastern Europe/Transylvania, Sto lat/the Sto Plans is kind of like France if I remember correctly, etc) .

Good Omens is totally standalone, so no worries there. My favorite three DiscWorld books (which really need to be read in order) are the Tiffany Aching books: The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith. They can be read outside the rest of the DiscWorld books, but a few of the characters and geographic locations in the stories are introduced in previous books. I'm sure I blathered on about all three books here at some point. Unless I read them after I stopped caring about sharing as many of my meandering thoughts.