Reviewed by clq on
The Colour of Magic has a very promising start. It is, of course, funny. Not entirely effortlessly so, the jokes seem a little forced at times, but not that often. Just consistently enough for it to be slightly jarring at times.
Under all the jokes there is also a story, and it begins very well. Strangely enough it seemed like the story just stopped after a while, and the rest of the book felt like a bunch of situations just thrown together more or less arbitrarily. In a way the story itself gives an indication to why this might be, but that didn't stop it from feeling rather disjointed. It was never very hard to follow what was going on, but convincing myself not to keep grasping for a sense of context became a real challenge. Maybe I need to read more of the Pratchett books to get that context.
I do hope Discworld gets better, and I'm sure it does. The universe is very promising, and the style of writing alone is enough to induce constant smiling with occasional spells of chuckling. I did like this book, but I'm also a little disappointed for my main takeaway from The Colour of Magic to be "the next book might be very good!"
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 11 January, 2015: Finished reading
- 11 January, 2015: Reviewed