Terry Pratchett

I don't know how and why the genre of Fantasy for grown-ups was hidden from me all these years. After the fairy tales that I read as a child, it was always books with the usual rules that I read.

Recently I discovered fantasy again, and what a pleasant thrill it was! First it was The Lord of the Rings. Then one of Neil Gaiman's books (Stardust), and now, Terry Pratchett, thanks to Lita Harrington's profile of this writer at Inscriptions.

Pratchett creates a world--a planet--that is a disc, unlike our globe. And a disc, as we know, has an end, an Edge. So what happens when you reach this Rim? The universe continues, but this planet ends--in a Rimfall (a waterfall) that falls over the edge of the planet into space. Obviously few have ventured over the Edge. This discworld, then, has to be supported somehow, it doesn't just float; it is held up by four gigantic elephants, who in turn stand on Great A'Tuin the Turtle, with sea-sized eyes and a brain as big as a city, who swims slowly through the interstellar gulf--to where? many intelligent people on the disc are trying to find out. And one of the biggest puzzles about this turtle is its gender--nobody yet knows. But they're trying to discover this by sending out spaceships over the Edge.

If all that sounds too absurd to stomach, the story isn't. As you read, you discover this world, and learn the rules (which are rather few), for example, that Death Himself comes to claim a wizard, instead of sending one of his subordinates like "He" does for lower people. And our main character is a wizard, "sort of," since he was chucked out his school of magic for stealing one of the great spells. His name is Rincewind. And there's the tourist, Twoflower from a different world, with his Luggage that follows him anywhere and everywhere on its "hundreds of legs."

This first book is the adventure of Twoflower with poor Rincewind taking him around for a daily wage of 1 Rhinu (an unimaginably big sum for anyone in Ankh-Morpork, leave alone an expelled wizard). Of course, not even many more Rhinus a day would have tempted the wizard to this adventure had he known the dangers and close shaves with Death that it would involve!

The book opens up your brain to new ways of thinking and makes you laugh out loud with Pratchett's terrific sense of humour. It seems there are twenty-five more books in the series. I think I'm going to read quite a few of them.

See also Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman