Portable Magic
Reading, for me, is entertainment and an escape from the real world. But it can also inform and stretch the boundaries of the life I live.
Currently reading
The Colour of Magic ★★★★☆
When I read this eight years ago, it was my first taste of Discworld. I was amazed and delighted, and I immediately set out to collect and read every single one. Of course, there are so many books, and the series seems to follow a construction and logic all its own, so after flailing about for a couple of books, I decided to read them one subseries at a time, starting with Witches. With one Witches book to go, I’m now starting over, re-reading the entire Discworld universe in chronological order of published dates, together with the Booklikes Discworld group.
In this second reading of The Colour of Magic, I felt just as delighted with Rincewind and Twoflower and especially the Luggage as when it was new. But with the perspective of having read some of the later books in the series, I was a little impatient with the construction of the story as a whole. It felt jumpy, disconnected, less of a coherent story and more of a series of vignettes. And the abrupt ending was maddening, with an awful temptation to jump straight into Light Fantastic to continue the story. But it’s a fun look back at the early rough construction of the Discworld universe, its odd peoples and laws and rules and funny asides. I needed this lighthearted romp – it was a nice break from a world that sometimes seems to have had its good humor sucked dry – and am looking forward to the next respite with The Light Fantastic, this coming December.
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