Deepdive: Discworld feat. Portybelle

Welcome to a new genre of blogposts! Deepdives. These will be slightly more indepth looks at specific series or authors that I'm particularly interested in. I hope you enjoy them:)

We also have our first guest… it’s my mum! My amazing mum who is a very well-established book blogger (and is much better than me!) has agreed to feature on my humble wee blog. You can find her blog here. I’ll let her introduce herself: 

Hello! I’m Grace’s mum and as she says, I’ve been a book blogger for nine years now. I started my blog because I love reading so much and I wanted to share that love of books. Over those nine years I’ve read so many brilliant books (thank you publishers, publicists and authors), attended loads of books events, and made many bookish friends both online and in real life. I read a LOT of books – two to three a week on average – and enjoy listening to audiobooks too. My favourite genres are romantic fiction, historical fiction and I guess what you’d call women’s contemporary fiction. 

Today we’re going to be talking about Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Series. I always remember my mum and dad talking about how much they loved these books, and, based on how much I love Good Omens, I decided to give Discworld a go! I was telling my mum about how I started reading The Colour of Magic (Discworld #1) and it inspired her to dip back into the Discworld with me. That’s when I got the idea for us to buddy read Mort (the best Discworld according to mum) and work on a Discworld deep dive together. 

A bit of background on the Discworld series: 

• There are 41 books in the series (don’t panic you don’t have to read them in order they are mostly standalone stories co-existing in the Discworld universe) 

• They were written over a period of thirty-two years starting in the 1980s 

• Pratchett sought to redefine the fantasy genre and frequently satirises classic fantasy tropes with his signature razor sharp wit 

• The Discworld universe is quite strange, and it won’t bother to explain its weirdness to you, so just accept it and enjoy the romping adventures

Rincewind’s story; The Colour of Magic #1 and The Light Fantastic #2 

From the first few minutes of listening to The Colour of Magic I knew this was going to be a lot of fun and very different to the majority of fantasy books. Pratchett’s writing is at once both deeply sophisticated, detailed and rich, but also delightfully silly. I will include some of my favourite moments of silliness at the end of this section to give you a flavour of what’s to come. The Colour of Magic introduces us to the Discworld and many of the key characters that will no doubt continue to crop up throughout the series. It is immediately clear that Pratchett has spent a lot of time creating Discworld. It is absolutely brimming with creativity and charmingly specific details which give a believable element to an unbelievable world. I like the way that Pratchett introduces you to the geography and laws of the Discworld as and when you arrive at them. For example, we are introduced to the gods via a scene of them playing a board game; the game being the events of the Discworld itself. This keeps your focus on the story and the characters while enhancing your understanding of Pratchett’s fascinating world.

The characters are snarky and sarcastic, possessing the same black humour as their creator, which is perhaps what sets it apart from most other fantasy. Not saying fantasy that takes itself seriously is not as good, it’s just a very different vibe! The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, are the first two books in the series and focus on the adventures of Rincewind; a magician of questionable magical skill and unquestionably bad luck, and Twoflower; the first tourist whose luck might be even worse. Rincewind is hired to be Twoflower’s tour guide and from that point onwards their combined abysmal luck leads to a great adventure. Or alternatively, a series of disasters and near misses. I loved exploring Discworld with Rincewind and Twoflower and I think Twoflower himself being a tourist is a really great way to introduce the reader to Discworld. It is such a rich and diverse setting with all manner of people, creatures and cultures in it. I can see how Pratchett found an almost unending wealth of inspiration for the ensuing series. I really enjoyed listening to this and I am currently on the waiting list to get The Light Fantastic from the library. I’m so looking forward to finding out what happens to this entertaining duo.

As promised, please enjoy some of my favourite quotes from The Colour of Magic; 

“Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the Discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant ‘idiot’.” 

“It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists’ houses and smashing their windows.” 

“In an instant he became aware that the tourist was about to try his own peculiar brand of linguistics, which meant that he would speak loudly and slowly in his own language.” 

Buddy Read; Mort #4  

Me and my mum read Mort at the same time and it was so fun checking in with each other and sharing thoughts and reactions! Here’s what we thought of Mort. 

Portybelle’s Thoughts 

Let me start by saying that I don't generally read fantasy books. Unpopular opinion perhaps but there you go. And yet, I love Terry Pratchett's books. My husband introduced me to Pratchett when we first met over thirty years ago. I think the first one I read was actually Good Omens which was co-written with Neil Gaiman of course and, recently, brilliantly adapted into a tv series starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant. I have it in mind that Mort was the first Discworld book I read even though it's the 4th in the series. 

I really enjoyed revisiting Discworld. It's actually been a while since I read any of the books but it was easy to get back into this familiar world and meet up with characters, many of whom recur throughout the series. This is the first book where Death features as a main chatracter. I always thought it was amusing that Death spoke in CAPITAL LETTERS so you always knew when he had appeared in someone's life. Nigel Planer used a very deep solemn voice for Death which worked really well. He is a superb narrator using distinctive voices and accents for each of the characters which made it a real pleasure to listen to this book. 

I was pleased to find near the beginning of the book that one of my favourite Discworld quotes is in Mort, a phrase used in relation to Discworld itself I believe: “Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.” 

Pratchett's world building is excellent with elements of the human world as we know it mixing with the fantastical world of witches, wizards and gods and where an orangutan can be a librarian. What makes Pratchett books so entertaining is that he pokes gentle fun at lots of traditions and it’s enjoyable spotting all the references slightly altered for the Discworld. I notice that the blurb for the book mentions that Discworld novels were first published in the 1980s and may reflect attitudes of the time. I am sure that some references will bypass younger readers but human nature doesn't change much so a lot is still very topical. 

Terry Pratchett really was a comic genius. I don’t normally read fantasy as I mentioned above but I do enjoy his witty and clever novels. I'll definitely be revisiting Discworld again and I know I haven't read all the later novels so will look out for these.  

My Thoughts 

Mort follows the tale of Mort (Mortimer) as he begins his employment with none other than Death himself. Like my mum mentioned, Death always speaks in CAPITAL LETTERS which really amplifies his deity status. Every time he pops up his power is reflected on the page. It was a lot of fun to delve deeper into the world of the gods which is one of my favourite parts of the Discworld. Unsurprisingly, Mort has some moral reservations with the work he has to do and really struggles with his role in leading souls, both innocent and guilty, to the next world. This leads Mort into all sorts of trouble, mishaps and general disasters – all things that the Discworld seems to provide in abundance.

Death was a very interesting character in The Colour of Magic so I really enjoyed getting to see what he’s like at work and at home. Death is normally portrayed to be a very frightening being (or non-being?), and although he does terrify most of the Discworld population, we get to see Death through a different lens. Mort explores what would happen if Death decides he fancies being human for a while and his apprentice must take the wheel? Mort is bursting with Pratchett’s signature one liners and quips, but I particularly enjoyed the creative description of a river being so filthy that an agnostic could have walked on it. In saying that, there is a bit of a philosophical edge to this Discworld instalment. There are lots of interesting questions being thrown around, such as what it means to be alive, what it means to die, who should live and die, and how we get from one world to the next. I think that adds a really interesting dimension compared to the more light-hearted atmosphere of The Colour of Magic.

Something I really appreciated in Mort was that there were more central female characters. Ysabelle – Death's adopted daughter, and Keli – who is next in line to the throne of Sto Lat. They are both very powerful strong women, particularly Keli who is prone to trampling all over Mort. I love how as powerful as Death is, Ysabelle can always get her way with him! For me, any book is immediately more fun when the girlies arrive so I loved them both. In true Discworld fashion, we see some familiar faces and places reappearing which is always rewarding for a familiar reader. I’m really looking forward to reading more of the Discworld series and getting even deeper into the lore of the land! 

I hope you enjoyed this slightly different style of blogpost and slightly more random content choice of a fantasy series from the 1980s! I love writing about things I’m excited about, so I hope you like reading it too. 

Love, Grace xx