The Colour of Magic (Discworld #1)

One-hundred and eighty nine pages are all that make up this second installment of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, and so as a palate cleanser after reading the giant tome The Name of the Wind, I picked it up ahead of starting the next whopper of a book, Children of Blood and Bone. Spoiler alert, I ended up reading Children of Blood and Bone first, but here we are.

I have never done any kind of drugs. Not even cigarettes. Considering that I grew up in extremely rural Maine where I have memories of at least two marijuana busts in mine and the neighboring towns and at least 4 of my family members smoked around me, this is a minor Christmas miracle.

Keep that in mind when I say that The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic are each what I imagine it would be like to be so high on cocaine that you create your own reality. These books move so fast and are so random-yet-well-planned that I can only conclude that Terry Pratchett was either VERY HIGH ON SOMETHING when he wrote them (i.e. Aaron Sorkin and the first 2 seasons of The West Wing) or he is a fucking genius.

Reading this book was like being spun around on a tire swing, then brought to an abrupt stop, forcing me to attempt to stay still until the world around me stops spinning.

Reading this book was like having one too many cups of coffee and then getting REALLY PRODUCTIVE.

It’s a bunch of non-sequiturs that magically come together to form a cohesive story that is only 180 pages long. You are taking a hilarious, weird, fantasy drag off of Pratchett’s mind joint and you will enjoy every moment.