Book Club - by Suhaili

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The Colour of Geekdom

May 12th 2006 05:22

Terry Pratchett, allegedly a very hairy man.

To the uninitiated (and yes, that includes me) Terry Pratchett represents, perhaps, the most geekish of geek literature. By and large, fantasy fiction has and probably always will be, the realm of society's fringe-dwellers - the maligned, the unique, the escapists... the nerds. And whilst I may already be a fully-fledged card-carrying member of this club, I had always reassured myself, "Well, at least you don't read Terry Pratchett!" Doctor Who, yes. Discworld, goodness no. For a long time I resisted the bright mawkish books with the annoyingly cartoonish covers. I cringed at the goofy and corny sense-of-humour that emanated from them, all-too-reminded of the most geeky kids at school who always said the worst possible thing in front of their peers - their sense of humour provoking laughs more often then providing them. Trainspotters. Stamp-collectors. Letterbox-photographers. These are the people that come to my mind when I think of Terry Pratchett! So, naturally, I avoided his books like they were AIDS itself.

Well, now I'm 26. And I don't give a fuck about school anymore. And, most importantly, someone gave me a copy of Pratchett's first Discworld novel, 'The Colour of Magic'. So I read it. Wanna make something of it?

It was decent enough. I suspect some of the humour has dated thanks to a couple of decades of various imitators.

Okay, look, it wasn't anywhere near as bad I thought it would be.

The Colour of Magic, the first Discworld novel (first published in 1983)

Alright, fine, I liked it!

So bite me.

I think this book would've been hilarious 'back in the day' - back when fantasy was generally po-faced and took itself so seriously. 'The Colour of Magic' introduces us to Discworld - a flat world carried about on the backs of four elepheants who stand on the back of a giant turtle who swims through space. Rincewind is a rather inept wizard on Discworld and this book follows his adventures to the edge. Some of 'The Colour of Magic' is still quite amusing now, it doesn't take the parody angle too far and some of the ideas are genuinely inspired so you still care what happens to the characters.

But now I have a problem, the book ends on a cliffhanger and I want to read the next one. There are about 34 Discworld novels and counting! What am I gonna do? Read them all!?

Probably.

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Posted By: Luke - Category: Fantasy

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Comments

2 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Keira

May 14th 2006 01:24

Keira's Blog

Clearly you can just borrow all my geeky books as I have them all... and its not geeky!

P
The later books are much much better, they are more... polished or something?
I don't know. I just know they get better as they go, but it is better to read them in order.
You get more of the in-jokes and things. Not to say that you can't read them stand alone as well.
Just enjoy them more if you know the characters background.
Thats all
Keira