Reviews with content warning for Blood - The Colour of Magic

I can definitely tell this is the first Discworld book. Most of the Discworld books I’ve read have been from way later in the series and focus mostly on the characters and their adventures in their own corner of the disc. This one did have a plot, sort of, and main characters, but it seemed mostly designed to introduce the reader to this weird new world of a disc on the backs of four elephants on the back of a giant turtle flying through space.

That need to explain the Discworld seemed to inform most of the content of this book. The protagonists are Rincewind, a wizard who got expelled from magic school and who only knows one spell, and Twoflower, the Disc’s first tourist who wants to see all the interesting things. And that’s mostly what the plot consists of – there isn’t really one, Rincewind and Twoflower just bounce around between interesting things. Twoflower delights in the excitement and newness of meeting eldritch monstrosities and nearly falling off the edge of the world, while Rincewind has plenty of near heart attacks while trying his best to get them both through it alive.

This book is pretty short, as most of the Discworld books seem to be. There’s quite a bit of adventure and exploring the world and such, but not much in the way of characterization. Rincewind was anxious and a little cowardly, but understandably so considering all the deadly nonsense he has to deal with in this book. Twoflower is obnoxiously blasé about the danger and seems incapable of realizing that this is real life and not just some grand fantasy jaunt and he could get himself or other people killed. There was none of the depth and poignancy I found in later books (especially the Tiffany Aching books).

That’s not to say I disliked it. It was a fairly fun read, lighthearted despite the frequent mortal danger, and serves as a solid introduction to the physics and basic terminology of living on a flat world. But that seemed to be the main purpose of the book – story and characters secondary to introducing this fantasy world. It absolutely isn’t a bad book, but I’m looking forward to the rest of the books being more character- and story-focused now that this groundwork has been established.

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