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THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YE FRET
I haven't laughed out loud while reading a book for a long, long time, but I did so, multiple times throughout this one. Pratchett's vivid imagination, and witty quotes sprinkled throughout The Colour of Magic, make for an entertaining read.
Rincewind is a wizard in Discworld, expelled from the Unseen University for reading one of the Eight Great Spells, which was permanently lodged in his mind. He is incompetent, cynical and cowardly, all ingredients of the basic anti-hero soup. By a twist of Fate, he ends up as guide to Twoflower, a naive tourist to Ankh-Morpork. Escaping from a fire that consumes the city, they travel the Disc, passing through the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth, an entity more evil than Evil; Wrymberg, an upside-down mountain housing "imaginary" dragons, before ending up at Krull, at the very edge of Discworld. And did I tell you that Discworld is borne on the backs of four elephants which rest on the shell of the Great Turtle, who ambles gently through space? I told you it was funny.
The book is full of dry humour, biting sarcasm and quotable quotes. Sample these:
"The only reason for walking into the jaws of Death is so's you can steal His gold teeth"-Hrun
"I've seen excitement and I've seen boredom. And boredom was best"-Rincewind
The writing is crisp, the action unending and the situations so exquisitely ridiculous they actually seem real. Rincewind is really cool, for once you don't see a brave young warrior striding into the face of the unknown, but a useless wizard out to save his skin by running the other way. This is just the first in a series of 36 (and still counting) novels, so I'm going to be posting reviews as and when I get my hands on them. For now, I'll leave you with a quote about Death (a regular fixture in Discworld novels)
"If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anchored a ship"
I haven't laughed out loud while reading a book for a long, long time, but I did so, multiple times throughout this one. Pratchett's vivid imagination, and witty quotes sprinkled throughout The Colour of Magic, make for an entertaining read.
Rincewind is a wizard in Discworld, expelled from the Unseen University for reading one of the Eight Great Spells, which was permanently lodged in his mind. He is incompetent, cynical and cowardly, all ingredients of the basic anti-hero soup. By a twist of Fate, he ends up as guide to Twoflower, a naive tourist to Ankh-Morpork. Escaping from a fire that consumes the city, they travel the Disc, passing through the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth, an entity more evil than Evil; Wrymberg, an upside-down mountain housing "imaginary" dragons, before ending up at Krull, at the very edge of Discworld. And did I tell you that Discworld is borne on the backs of four elephants which rest on the shell of the Great Turtle, who ambles gently through space? I told you it was funny.
The book is full of dry humour, biting sarcasm and quotable quotes. Sample these:
"The only reason for walking into the jaws of Death is so's you can steal His gold teeth"-Hrun
"I've seen excitement and I've seen boredom. And boredom was best"-Rincewind
The writing is crisp, the action unending and the situations so exquisitely ridiculous they actually seem real. Rincewind is really cool, for once you don't see a brave young warrior striding into the face of the unknown, but a useless wizard out to save his skin by running the other way. This is just the first in a series of 36 (and still counting) novels, so I'm going to be posting reviews as and when I get my hands on them. For now, I'll leave you with a quote about Death (a regular fixture in Discworld novels)
"If words had weight, a single sentence from Death would have anchored a ship"
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