The Discworld Reading Order Guide 3.0!
imgur.com/a/Yqipw
imgur.comPosted Apr 2, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC
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imgur.comThe great thing about the Discworld novels is, it doesn't really matter what order you read them in. You can still enjoy them, and Sir Terry never seemed to assume his readers would have read all of his other books.
The first one I ever read was Mort, which was self-contained, but the second I read was Men At Arms, and I didn't even realise I was picking up the second of a series until I'd finished it.
Still, I would say that reading them in the order shown here will make them even more satisfying for new readers.
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I actually read all of the then-available novels twice in publication order before I made the Guide.
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That's how I'm reading them now. They are so short that it's not like you lose track of the character arcs when you jump around.
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It would be interesting to see the publication order incorporated into this picture somehow: possibly as a watermarked number behind the name or a little bubble off to the side of the book names with the number in it.
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We tried that on a draft version. It cluttered the Guide. Anyone can look up the publication order on Wikipedia and such. We decided to compromise for the sake of transparency and usability.
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That thought went through my mind when I was trying to imagine how it would look. It is already fairly busy so i understand the choice. So it goes. Looks good!
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Another challenge here is that different language versions of the Guide will already have small bubbles alongside untranslated novels.
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I wish I'd known back when I read Night Watch that it was the 6th book in a series. I was pretty underwhelmed and might have enjoyed it more if I'd read the others first.
I was going to read Thief of Time soon, does that stand alone well enough or should I have read the other Death novels? I read Mort years ago but none of the others.
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I'd read the other Death novels first.
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The three most popular timelines are the Watch, the Witches, and Death. Most would highly recommend starting with these for those, respectively: Guards Guards, Wyrd Sisters, and Mort. Starting in the middle of those timelines will definitely detract from the experience a little.
No worries though! For the record, my first Discworld novel was Thud. I loved it so much I went back and read all the Watch books in order, and reading Thud again when I got to it. No regrets :)
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Confession: I was strongly against reading Discworld until I realized that I had been confusing Terry Pratchett with Terry Goodkind.
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I heard about the cover debacle.
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So, I haven't read any of the Discworld books. Where should I start?
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It's best to grab a fellow Pratchett fan, show him or her this Guide and let them talk you over the series :). A lot of people recommend starting with Guards! Guards!, for one.
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Alright, I'll look into that one. Is there a particular reason why that one is the best to start with?
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It is a really funny and good book.
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It is the start of the City Watch books.
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It is (relatively) early in publication order.
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It is not too bizarre.
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It is not too reliant on specific references to other fantasy works.
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It is really funny.
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It is a good story.
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It is a really funny and good story.
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It captures the tone of the entire series well.
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It is where I started.
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Pratchett himself has admitted that he wrote several books before he ever discovered what a "plot" is :P. In truth, the earliest novels are now not considered his best and do not have an established canon - the patricians and archchancellors change, etc. "Guards! Guards!" is considered the first polished novel in that it has a cohesive plot and established characters which later appear in numerous novels. Also, some of the earlier books have multiple references to older sword & sandal fantasy that many modern readers simply do not know (like Fritz Leiber and such), so the jokes often go over people's heads.
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Basically Pratchett had started to hit his stride but it's early enough that there's few spoilers/references to other books that go over your head. The first two Discworld books are very different to most of the series.
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Honestly the easiest way to go is just published order. The only reason you wouldn't do that is because the first two books in that order are subpar compared to the rest. (they're still good, just not as good).
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Don't start with The Colour of Magic.
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Uh oh, I'm doing just that because iv e owned the ebook forever. About 1/3 of the way in and I'm enjoying it so far.
But, what you're saying is that this is one of his weakest books?
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Finally got the daughter to start reading these.
My hook for her was The Wee Free Men.
Then through the Tiff books.
Then the middle Witches (Wyrd, Abroad, L&L).
We might now nip back to Equal rites as a lead into the Wizards in Sourcery.
After that the disc is her bi-valve.
But my point is that Wee Free Men should be considered a Starter Novel for young ladies with a wicked sense of humour.
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The issue here is that making it orange would conceal the fact that it's a YA novel, which needs to be purple. I'd need to somehow include both pieces of information, which would further complicate the guide. I agree it's a good starter novel, though.
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This is upsetting to look at. Because it's not going to grow.
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- Why is The Fifth Elephant connected to The Truth?
- Why is Night Watch connected to The Truth?
- Why is The Truth connected to Unseen Academicals?
Just interested in what the 'minor connections' are.
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Night Watch is about revolution and The Truth about the establishment of a free press, and from a historical perspective both motifs go hand in hand. Also, there is a strong presence of the Watch in both novels. The Fifth Elephant just points to the fact that The Truth can be treated as a spinoff of the Watch subseries (as an Ankh-Morpork-based series) and a precursor to the Moist von Lipwig books (with William de Worde being a sort of proto-Lipwig). De Worde makes a cameo in Unseen Academicals (he also makes cameos in later Lipwig novels, but these are already linked.
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I'm pretty sure that William de Worde appears in Night Watch, even if only for a page or two. And he may appear in Unseen Academicals as well. And I think that Lady Margolotta is one of the people William writes his newsletter to. I don't know if there are any other connections than that.
Obviously, Vimes, Angua and one or two others appear in The Truth.
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thats informative
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I've recently decided to re-read all the old books I had stashed away under my bed.
Any chance that there is a more printer friendly (A4, B/W) version of this guide somewhere?
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Send me an e-mail to the address on the Guide and I'll send you the Photoshop file.
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I've just started my own reading journey so thanks for posting the updated reading order!
I picked up The Colour of Magic and Mort, and will likely refer to this multiple times before I head to bookstores as I navigate my way through the storylines :)
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Glad I could help :-).
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One of my friends just shared this post with me. Immediately went to the copyshop to print it on A3 and laminate it. It's now on my wall! Thanks!
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Sweet! If you'd like, you can send me a photo of it on your wall and I could feature it on Facebook for the Guide.
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I can still use the email mentioned on the image?
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Yup.
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What is this... Can it be...? OOK! It's the long-awaited Discworld Reading Order Guide 3.0!!!
Be sure to download it from Imgur in the highest resolution here: https://imgur.com/a/Yqipw
And be sure to share the post and tell your friends!
Special thanks goes out to Andrés Peña and Emmanuel Varet, the Spanish and French translators, for their substantive and technical work on the Guide since version 2.1. Thanks both for agreeing to contribute this one last time!
Special thanks also goes out to Diana Nock for her contribution of the coat of arms.
Additional thanks goes out to Joost Bruining, Herman Hiddema, and Evgeny Pliss for their suggestions.
And as usual, big thanks to Jakov Olekstein, the graphic design artist since version 2.0.
Cheers, Krzysztof Kietzman
That's awesome! I just started to read Discworld with Guards! Guards! and I can tell I'll love to explore this world further. Your guide will be very handy. Thank you!
Could we get a short change log? Would be interesting to see what changed and why.
Change log from Andrés Peña, the Spanish translator:
"3.0 final, additions and changes:
Thanks!
Do you have a link to the first guide?
In what sense? The oldest version of my own guide that I found online (made in PowerPoint) is 1.25 - honestly, I don't think 1.0 existed for longer than a week.
I just want to see how it has changed
Here's 1.1: http://gallery.greedykidz.net/rem/00+The+Discworld+reading+order+guide.JPG.html
How do you get to the high res version? I can't find that option, and the linked version is illegibly low res.
Open it on Imgur directly, it should be 2000 x 3650 pixels. Alternatively, click here and zoom in: https://i.imgur.com/hkJR0Dx.jpg Is that OK for you? I can send a PSD file (tomorrow at the earliest) if you write me an email to the address on the Guide.
Doesn't work on mobile. Even if I open just the image, it is low res and illegible.
There is a separate Google PLAY app with the Discworld Reading Order Guide, but it's now still on version 2.0. I reached out to the creator and he should update it soon. I'm not sure how Imgur handles images on mobile - on a desktop, after you click on the image, it opens the high-resolution image, which is 2000 x 3650 pixels, or the size of an A3 poster. In other words, it's Imgur's fault, not mine :-).
Awesome, as always :D
Edit: also, i did not know Terry recommended starting with Sourcery - that's good to know!
Hi there, I absolutely love this and want to share it to my university's fantasy & sci-fi group, but I wanted to credit you and the other creators for this properly. Is there any way you'd particularly prefer to be credited for this or shall I just give your name and a link to this post?
All the needed credit information is there on the Guide itself - you do not need to provide additional credit, just feel free to link to this file or to the Facebook post on the Discworld Reading Order Guide Facebook page :-).
Brill, will do :)