The Colour of Magic
The launch of the bestselling and best-loved comic fantasy series ever written — rougher than what followed, and historically indispensable: every Discworld reread starts somewhere, and the Luggage debuts here.
Book Entry · Fantasy
What is Mort about?
Death — seven feet of bone, BLUE-EYED SOCKETS, SPEAKS LIKE THIS, fond of cats and curious about curry — takes an apprentice: Mort, a gangling boy whose family despaired of him. The duties (THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE IS JUST ME.) go smoothly until Mort, sent solo, saves a princess he was meant to collect, splitting reality into a shrinking bubble where she remains alive while the universe insists otherwise. Meanwhile his employer, off duty for the first time in eternity, tries his bony hand at fly fishing, gambling and gainful employment as a short-order cook. The book where Pratchett discovered his series' beating heart was a skeleton's.
Why it matters
Widely cited as the point Discworld became Discworld — the first book carried by character and theme rather than parody — and the foundation of the Death sequence, the series' most beloved strand.
Where does it sit in the series?
Forty-one novels on a flat world carried by four elephants on a giant turtle: Pratchett's comic mirror in which wizards, witches, coppers and DEATH reflect everything that matters about the round one.
In the Guide from Discworld:
- The Colour of Magic (1983)
- Mort (1987)
- Small Gods (1992)
- Night Watch (2002)
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