"The Colour of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic" were very rough by comparison to the later books; PTerry didn't really hit his stride until Mort, and even that was choppy. I'd counsel skipping to "Guards! Guards!", and then read everything except Light Fantastic in whatever order seems useful. If you hate getting things out of their main-character chronology, you'll want to pay attention to the order given here, and I'd say that the Watch series is a good place to begin in any event. In the other groupings, the order as given is appropriate IMO, except "Pyramids" and "Small Gods" can be swapped; they don't have a sequence. "Monstrous Regiment" can be inserted anywhere along the line toward the end of the Watch tales.
Of the book and stories published to date, my favorite is probably "Night Watch". Reading "Thief of Time" before "Night Watch" is advisable. Once you have read TOT, certain throwaway bits in a number of the other books will suddenly pop out, and for NW, it's fairly important to know about Sweeper; this will make sense when the moment arrives. |
