I draw the line when it starts to feel like I'm wading through exposition instead of advancing the story much.Zarathustra wrote:Ha, I just popped into this forum for the first time in months and saw this by chance. I've read Neverness and thought it was overall ok, and brilliant in many spots. If he gets better, maybe I should press on. I'm not sure it's possible to be "too philosophical," as Av says, but I'm curious to see where others draw this line.
I've never read Pratchett. I know I should. So help me out, where should I start?
I do think the follow-up trilogy (Requiem for Homo Sapiens) was better than Neverness was.
As for Pratchett...
Obviously, start with the Discworld books. If you don't like those, you probably won't like the rest of his books, and they do make up the vast majority of them.
Personally I do think that reading them in the publication order is the best thing. However, these days I find the first few a bit flat, if only because of the fantastic way the characters develop in later books, making them seem a bit undeveloped now that I go back. (Because they were.) But the first few are the grounding that lets that development build up.
Another possibility is to pick a story-line and follow it. There are a few main ones, namely the Wizards, the Witches, Death, the Watch, Moist von Lipwig and Tiffany Aching, that run as contiguous stories, interspersed by stand-alone books in the same world, (like Pyramids, Small Gods, The Truth, and Monstrous Regiment).
The first 5 books are basically the start of each of the original main story-lines. (Moist and Tiffany come later.)
Book 1 and 2, (The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic) begin the Wizard story-line, book 3, (Equal Rites) begins the Witches, Book 4 (Mort) begins the Death story-line and 5, (Guards, Guards), begins the Watch.
After that, the publication order alternates irregularly between them, with those stand-alone ones popping in every now and then.
Also, they start off as something of a parody of fantasy tropes, but they develop into comedic social satire.
Great books. Hope you enjoy them. (There is a Pratchett thread inhere somewhere.)
--A