Book Review: A Colour Of Magic By Terry Pratchett

I’ve had this lying around for ages now, and I’m so glad I finally read it. I don’t know how much of an introduction I’ll give, but Terry Pratchett is a wonderful fantasy author, best known for his Discworld series, of which this is the first series. He unfortunately passed away a few years ago, but he’s in the spotlight again these days with the series Good Omen which he wrote together with Neil Gaiman.

I loved this, it was such a breath of fresh air. A lot of people have told me to avoid this book, and start with some other book in the Discworld series because apparently this one isn’t good, but I don’t understand what they’re talking about. This was excellent.

Pratchett wrote this in 1986 if I recall correctly, and he was doing a lot stuff back then that you can’t do in writing now. For example, some of his dialogue is just ‘?’ he said, which is absolutely brilliant. Short and to the point, but totally unacceptable today. Also, his view on world-building is just to tell you how the world works, pretty straight forward, and then move on with the plot. It’s refreshing. There’s no intricate weaving of fantasy term and jargon into the plot, it’s just: “here’s the thing.”

And the story is great. The plot is essentially that a tourist arrives to our magical realm and meets the wizard Rincewind. The tourist pays Rincewind to show him around, and so adventure ensues. It’s simple, fun, and hilarious. I also enjoy that it’s so short. It’s a simple evening read, and instead of feeling overwhelmed, you’ll want to pick up the next one.

If you’re looking for a different brand of fantasy, this might very well be it.