SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: Summer 2021] The Colour of Magic
Back in the mid 1990s I was working at a bookstore in Boston (Wordsworth, R.I.P.). They had a great imported books section (from England) and I bought the first four Discworld books in mini editions. They were adorable and preposterous, with a font size of about 4pt. They were about four inches square.
Imagine reading a book that small. I would be physically incapable of reading it now.
But I read all four books.
At least I thought I did. Because when I decided to reread the Discworld series, I distinctly remembered that Rincewind was a bad wizard and that he wore a hat with the word “Wizzard” on it. He traveled with Twoflower and Twflower had magical luggage.
But when I read this book, he never wore a hat that said “Wizzard” and literally nothing in the story was familiar to me. So maybe I never read these books? Granted it was over 25 years ago but still
So it was like reading them for the first time.
This first book is rally four interconnected stories. But there’s enough repetition of basic information at the start of each story that you know that these were intended to be read separately.
Discworld itself is very well established already, though.
“The Color of Magic”
We start in the city of Ankh-Morpork which is presently on fire. We meet Rincewind who is instantly revealed as a terrible wizard and a cowardly person (as many wizards prove to be). He has lodged in his brain one of the eight mega powerful spells from the Octavo and as a result can fit no other spells into his head. No one know what will happen is he says the Spell, but it probably wont be good.
He is with (and sort of protecting) Twoflower, the world’s first tourist. Twoflower is an insurance clerk from the Agatean Empire. Hhe tries to sell “in-sewer-ants” to a tavern owner who is used to getting his inn burnt down in brawls. And yes, Twoflower has luggage made of sapient pearwood. It will follow its owner anywhere (on little legs that everyone finds very disturbing). The Luggage is aggressive and always looks angry (as angry as a keyhole can look). It also tends to eat anyone who tries to break in.
Twoflower is just a clerk, but gold is so common where he lives that he is laden with it and happily overpays for everything (tourist that he is).
“The Sending of Eight”
The second story is told in a kind of flashback as our heroic trio are fleeing the burning city. In this story they head to Quirm. But there’s a preface that explains that our heroes are all just pawns in a game being played by the gods on he mountain Dunmanifestin. When it comes to Rincewind, one of the Gods roles a seven on a six-sided die. Even the gods can rig the game.
In this story they head to Temple of Bel-Shamharoth. Twoflower would just love to get a picture. But when Bel-Shamharoth, proves to be an enormous multi-tentacled, posibly multidimensional beast, it’s going to to take something massive to defeat it–like maybe Twoflower’s picture box–which has a little imp inside who paints really fast and is aware of flash technology.
“The Lure of the Wyrm”
Our heroes head to Wyrmberg which proves to be a land full of dragons (which don’t exist, as we all know). Twoflower always wanted to see one (even though they don’t exist). It turns out that his imagination is so powerful he is able to imagine one into existence. Pratchett has a little fun mocking conventions of female warriors clad in nothing (progressive for 1983). There’s some interesting battles and the appearance of Hrun the barbarian. There’s also a wonderful moment where the heroes fall through a time hole and wind up on a plane as Dr. Rjinswand and Zweiblumen.
The plane creates a paradox of energy and good sci-fi stuff and eventually crashes into the sea back on the disc which leads them to the edge of the disc–where no one know what happens.
“Close to the Edge”
They nearly fall off the edge, but they are stopped by the Circumfence, a huge net built by the nation of Krull to catch sea life and flotsam washed in from the rest of the Discworld. The creature watching the Circumfence is Tethis, a water troll (Pratchett has a lot of fun with a creature that is primarily made of water–his descriptions are great).
The two are taken to the city of Krull where they are to be sacrificed to the god Fate. Their sacrifice is to ensure the success of their plan to launch a space capsule over the edge of the disc to determine the sex of Great A’Tuin. Our heroes wind up escaping in the capsule and going over the edge. Hope Twoflower has his camera ready.
It’s pretty amazing that book is basically a cliffhanger–especially since the next book didn’t come out for three more years
Happily for all involved Death makes several appearances, talking in all small caps and being wise and funny. I love that Death is presented as the creature that ends suffering. He is quite keen to take Rincewind who keeps avoiding his clutches (he’s nearly died like fifteen times), but that’s the most we ever see Death invested in someone like that.
It’s a decent start to the series. Definitely not as fun as the other ones, as it is more of a parody of specific story tropes, but there are some seriously good laughs in it.
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