★★★

The Discworld Reread: Book II

We left the hopeless wizard Rincewind in a situation where, quite frankly, things could only get better. To be precise, he was plunging off the edge of the world. As this new novel gets underway, he receives both good news and bad. The good news is that, quite improbably, he’s somehow managed to end up in a tree somewhere on the Disc and that he isn’t dead. Yet. The bad news is that the Discworld is in the path of a huge red star, which is approaching at alarming speed and is due to wipe out the entire world in two months’ time… and only Rincewind can save it. Under these circumstances, as you may imagine, it’s a toss-up whether Rincewind or the world at large is more worried about the prospect.

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★★★

The Discworld Reread: Book I

About twenty years ago, I found a secondhand book in a charity shop or at a jumble sale (it was 35p, according to the scrawled pencil inscription in the front). This was The Colour of Magic, the first in a long line of Discworld novels that would appear for birthdays and Christmases, and which would soon become a defining feature of my teenage years. Then there was the series of Discworld maps; the quizbook; the art book; the companion guide; and the three computer games (Discworld Noir was brilliant: I’m still sad that it won’t work on current editions of Windows). Yes: I was a bit of a Discworld geek. I still dip into the books now and then, when I need something light and cuddly. And, in the aftermath of the existential gloom of The Evenings, that’s exactly what I needed. So I decided to embark on a structured reread, book by book, of this much-loved series.

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