The Color of Magic
The Color of Magic | ||||||||||||
Hardcover - UK - 1st edition. |
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The Color of Magic, spelled The Colour of Magic in the UK, is a comedic fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett and the first book in the Discworld series, published in 1983.
Contents
Personal
Own? | No. |
Read? | Audiobook read by Nigel Planer |
Finished | June 2017 |
I first picked this book up because my girlfriend at the time bought it. She was a huge fan of Good Omens and wanted to read more books by Pratchett. I didn't have a chance to read much of it, and, finding the first couple pages dull, didn't read any further. Later, my co-worker Paul, who is a huge Pratchett fan and had read every one of the Discworld books, continued to rave about him. Later still, I decided to give the book another chance and listened to an audiobook recording. It was funny, but not great.
Review
Overall: |
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— This section contains spoilers! —
Good
- Overall, the book is funny. There are a lot of small jokes, ironic jokes, plays on tropes, etc. I chortled many times. Pratchett makes some hilarious descriptions.
- Basing the world on real-life myths is a staple of fiction, but using the most ridiculous myths, like that the earth is supported by four giant elephants riding a huge turtle, was genius!
- The way Pratchett bases magic on scientific principles is pretty cool.
- The description of the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth, talking about all objects based around nine minus one and the square root of 64 was funny because it so clearly jabs at the stupid taboos of religions.
- Death is a hilarious character.
Bad
- I don't care much for childish silly humor, and there was a fair amount of it with Twoflower and his trunk.
- The book becomes rather hard to follow in the later portion when the characters are jumping between dimensions and the time line gets jumbled up.
- If sapient pearwood is nearly extinct, entirely magic-proof, and extremely valuable, how does a middle-class wizard like Twoflower have a trunk made out of it?
- I didn't care much for the ending which leaves a lot of loose ends.
Ugly
- Nothing
Cover Art
Unknown region, appears to be US, but uses UK spelling. This is my favorite cover. It plays on Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, but uses a turtle and four elephants.