Audiobook Review Bites: The Color of Magic & The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

I’m probably one of the last people on the planet who hasn’t read anything by Terry Pratchett despite the fact that I have friends who are huge fans of his, especially one of my closest and dearest friends, Nick, who is more infamous around these parts as being a peddler of his mom’s filthy alien smut that has been immortalized under the Goodreads bookshelf “Nick’s Mom’s Porn (Has Got it Going On)” which is often sang to the tune Stacy’s Mom.  However, that’s another story. When Pratchett passed away, I agreed do to a buddy read with him out of sympathy. I mean, I planned to get to the books, anyway, so I figured now was a good a time as any.

The Color of Magic
Series: Book 1 of Discworld
Length: 6 hrs 55 mins
Narrator: Nigel Planer
Whispersync: No

“Let’s just say that if complete and utter chaos were lightning, then he’d be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armor and shouting ‘All gods are bastards.’ Got any food?”

This book is the beginning of it all. Readers learn about Discworld, a world that rides on the back of a giant turtle–called Great A’Tuin–swimming through space. We meet Rincewind, a cowardly failed wizard who has one of the world’s greatest spells lodged in his head, a spell so great that other spells refuse to stay in the same head, and Twoflower (with Luggage), a tourist from a far land who looks at the world through such rosy glasses that he believes nothing bad could ever happen to him and generally, this holds true for him. Twoflower hires Rincewind to be his guide through this strange land, leading Rincewind on adventures he’d rather not have.

Admittedly, I wasn’t overly impressed with The Color of Magic. I certainly enjoyed Twoflower and Luggage (who is my favorite character and the real MVP of this series). However, I wasn’t taken with Rincewind. I liked him as the cowardly wizard turned unconventional hero with the (unwanted) help of Twoflower and Luggage. He just didn’t make me feel any particular way about him. I was only mildly amused by most of this book until the end when it started showing some of what I could expect with upcoming books in terms of storytelling. However, I figure that the first book was really just to introduce me to the world, much like taking a tourist on their first trip of a land, and give me a feel of where these stories are going more than anything else. It wasn’t terrible, but I just found myself bored with at points and hoping that continuing forward in this series the rest wouldn’t be quite as tedious as this.

The Light Fantastic
Series: Book 2 of Discworld
Length: 6 hrs 59 mins
Narrator: Nigel Planer
Whispersync: Yes

Darkness isn’t the opposite of light, it is simply its absence, and what was radiating from the book was the light that lies on the far side of darkness, the light fantastic.

The Light Fantastic follows Rincewind and Twoflower after a strange, even stranger than normal, turn of events in The Color of Magic. Rincewind has gone from just being a bumbling tour guide for Twoflower to being the man that might actually have to save the world with Twoflower and Luggage as part of his heroic entourage, which Rincewind is very skeptical about and feels like hiding is probably the better solution to the problem.

The Light Fantastic found its footing immediately being both engaging and funny from its opening lines:

 The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn’t sure it was worth all the effort.

I’m not sure how much time passed between the publishing of these two books, but to me, this book was much better paced than the first book. It seemed to be a more confident endeavor as Pratchett’s writing pushed past being cautiously humorous to pretty laugh-out-loud funny.  It’s the kind of book that made me smile throughout the day when I think about the antics and Pratchett’s clever use of word play. As I mentioned, I was a little worried that the rest of the books might continue to be like the first. Don’t get me wrong, though. The first book isn’t bad, but mind would often wander when the writing stopped engaging me with the first book. I didn’t have that problem with this book.

I liked Rincewind much better in this book, too. I felt the character really got a chance to flourish in this story. There were more facets of his personality presented here and it was interesting to watch him grow as a character during this adventure.

Nigel Planer’s narration of these books was lively. He’s an excellent voice for this series. The only complaint I have (and it’s not with the narrator) is that the quality of these audiobooks aren’t the greatest. I guess they just took the old recordings (maybe) and made them digital. The narration quality for The Light Fantastic is much better than the narration quality for The Color of Magic. It was a bit muddled sounding, but Planer is such a great narrator that I’ll continue to listen to these books.

Nick and I are currently working our way through the Rincewind series of these books mainly because I just had to start at the first book and could not be dissuaded. I had to get used to the idea that I wasn’t about to read this series in order. What I love about this series is that, despite being massive, these can be treated sort of like standalone stories (or at least that what it feels like so far). However, at the same time, there are books in this series that can be tied together to make different smaller “series,” which was a cool idea. I remember reading that Pratchett could be unconventional like that in his writing, such as eschewing chapters for the most part in his writing. Anyhow, I look forward to continuing forward with Rincewind’s story, which continues in book 5 Sourcery.