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    The Colour Of Magic: A Discworld Novel
    Unavailable
    The Colour Of Magic: A Discworld Novel
    Unavailable
    The Colour Of Magic: A Discworld Novel
    Audiobook (abridged)3 hours

    The Colour Of Magic: A Discworld Novel

    Written by Terry Pratchett

    Narrated by Tony Robinson

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the Discworld. Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant idiot.

    Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place which might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. It plays by different rules. Certainly it refuses to succumb to the quaint notion that universes are ruled by pure logic and the harmony of numbers.

    But just because the Disc is different doesn't mean that some things don't stay the same. Its very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the arrival of the first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land. But if the person charged with maintaining that survival in the face of robbers, mercenaries and, well, Death is a spectacularly inept wizard, a little logic might turn out to be a very good idea...

    The Colour of Magic is the first novel in Terry Pratchett's acclaimed Discworld series, of which some 20 million copies have been sold. This special hardcover edition is reissued to commemorate the twenty-first anniversary of its first publication by Colin Smythe Limited in 1983. Since then the Discworld has spawned a further thirty-one titles and become one of the most popular and celebrated sequences in English literature.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House UK Audio
    Release dateJan 4, 2007
    ISBN9781407032016
    Unavailable
    The Colour Of Magic: A Discworld Novel
    Author

    Terry Pratchett

    Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) was the acclaimed creator of the globally revered Discworld series. In all, he authored more than fifty bestselling books, which have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he was the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal. He was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to literature in 2009, although he always wryly maintained that his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any.

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    Reviews for The Colour Of Magic

    4/5

    5,746 ratings200 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Excellent!
    • 3/5
      Don't start with number one! Rincewind the wizzard is kinda a snoozer but the Pratchett genius shines through. 
    • 4/5
      While this is a reread for me it's the first time I've listened to the audiobook. I loved listening to it, I think the characters that Terry Pratchett has come up with are wonderful, and having them come to life through a narrator in an audiobook just made them better. The only issue was the looks I got from my family each time I laughed out loud while listening to the audio through headphones.
    • 4/5
      I've arrived at the gates of Discworld, and so far it looks like a pretty inviting place.The Colour of Magic has a very promising start. It is, of course, funny. Not entirely effortlessly so, the jokes seem a little forced at times, but not that often. Just consistently enough for it to be slightly jarring at times.Under all the jokes there is also a story, and it begins very well. Strangely enough it seemed like the story just stopped after a while, and the rest of the book felt like a bunch of situations just thrown together more or less arbitrarily. In a way the story itself gives an indication to why this might be, but that didn't stop it from feeling rather disjointed. It was never very hard to follow what was going on, but convincing myself not to keep grasping for a sense of context became a real challenge. Maybe I need to read more of the Pratchett books to get that context.I do hope Discworld gets better, and I'm sure it does. The universe is very promising, and the style of writing alone is enough to induce constant smiling with occasional spells of chuckling. I did like this book, but I'm also a little disappointed for my main takeaway from The Colour of Magic to be "the next book might be very good!"
    • 4/5
      I've heard that this is not the best of the Discworld books and since I started the series with the Death books I would have to agree, however this was entertaining and very funny in spots. There were some characters in the book that were just awesome and some that just made me shake my head.Overall a funny read and I look forward to the next.
    • 4/5
      Many years ago I started reading Discworld books, starting with "The Colour of Magic" and have now worked my way through around 20 or so of the Discworld series. This first entry was funny but the series ended up all sounding the same storyline with names and faces changed.It turns out that Pratchett is the author I have read the most and "The Colour of Magic" introduced to a different way of looking at the world as Prachett satirically covers the introduction of the Discworld's first tourist, and his sentient luggage, as well Rincewind the wizard (who has become one of the main characters in the Discworld series) and the fact that Discworld is flat and carried by a group of large elephants who in turn sit upon a giant turtle. Probably still my favorite Discworld book and perhaps I might even read it again one day in memory of PTerry.
    • 3/5
      Not as strong as his later novels (even on the sentence and paragraph level it's not quite so polished) but perfectly readable and enjoyable.
    • 3/5
      not sure what to think about this book. Maybe it's because of the translation, but still haven't found the correct feeling for it.
    • 3/5
      A Discworld book I didn't love. That's a first. It was fine. It had humor, adventure, characters who don't really fit into the world. I just didn't love the characters. Rincewind and Twoflower were both annoying on opposite sides of the spectrum. One too callous, one too earnest. This is the first Discworld book, and it does a good job of setting up the world. It explains the geography of Discworld but also throughout the story we get gimpses of all the ways the series can continue. There are just so many scenes that have enough in them to merit a whole book. The Dragon Imaginers. The Heroes. The University. I know lots of things get their own book, and if this book is good for anything its good at introducing the possibilities of Discworld. It made me excited to move on and explore the corners of the Disc.
    • 4/5
      It’s so good to revisit the beginnings of Discworld. Rincewind the wizard and the world’s first tourist explore some of the more interesting points of Discworld. Funny and exciting and ridiculous, it’s everything you want from Terry Pratchett.

      Now on to book 2: The Light Fantastic!
    • 2/5
      Of the Pratchett books I've read, this is my least favorite. I can see where his style has grown since this book, but if it was the first one of his I'd read, I can almost guarantee that I wouldn't have bothered with the rest of the series. Not my style writing or humor. However, I did enjoy enough of it (in bits and pieces) to finish the book.
    • 4/5
      Being the first Discworld book, The Color of Magic is vastly different in many ways from the books that follow it. The characters of Rincewind and Twoflower are not as well defined as they would later become in the series and the Discworld itself is also still an idea in its infancy.

      This doesn't mean that Sir Terry Pratchett's humor is any less hilarious though. The dialog is witty and filled with puns and innuendos that you might only catch on a second or third read-through, and the story is pretty well written from beginning to end.

      Reading The Color of Magic after the passing of Sir Terry Pratchett really makes me both sad and happy, sad that such a wonderful writer and person passed away, and happy that he gave us one of the most enduring universes in all of literature.
    • 3/5
      This was a fun read with many "groaner" type funny allusions, which I happen to like. However, it does seem a little light on substance so I'm hoping later books in the series will get meatier. Nevertheless, in a world of limited reading time, this first book in the series was good enough to motivate me to seek out others from this series. A clever, humorous pseudo-fantasy. I think my fascination with travel literature and the role of the tourist in culture has something to do with my enjoyment of this book.
    • 3/5
      Ugh... either my mood is moving from book to book or I'm lucking out. But Pratchett's Discworld books are already sort of borderline for me. I'm not really into this kind of satire, fun, whatever it is. And turns out that this discworld book is one of the rougher ones. Really not my cup of tea. I was okay for the first half of the book but then it just got too weird, and too jumpy. One minute they are falling to their deaths, then they are in an alternate universe, then they are back to falling, then they are on a boat in what seems months later. Off to something else I know I'll like.
    • 5/5
      The Color of Magic is the first of Pratchett's acclaimed Discworld series. Having previously read and enjoyed Thief of Time, I was looking forward to this novel. It did not disappoint. In some ways, it was almost better. Thief of Time was much more oriented towards the gags than the story. In The Color of Magic, it was the opposite. Pratchett's satire is still strong. But the novel also had a great fantasy story to accompany it. It wasn't all silliness. What's great about the Discworld books is, as a fan of fantasy fiction, Pratchett isn't attacking the genre, nor is he ignorant of it. He's satirizing our world, and using the fantasy setting to do it. When he prods fantasy, it's out of love, not out of criticism. That's real satire, and what's lacking in the garbage most of modern satire has become. I don't know if Pratchett's style will ever wear thin for me. But right now, I'm enjoying the ride.
    • 5/5
      Whimsical, imaginative satire of fantasy literature. Also, very British.
    • 4/5
      've come to Terry Pratchett somewhat late, only to find I've overlooked a writer deft at the difficult art of farce. Imaginative, funny, zany and without any pretense, Pratchett's The Colour of Magic is an easy, entertaining read that demands nothing of you but your willingness to again become a child and explore a sense of wonder. The world Pratchett creates is a disc carried upon the the backs of four elephants, who in turn ride a great galactic turtle. On this disc-world magic abounds (and hence the interdit regarding the number eight), as do strange creatures (I particularly loved the luggage), strange adventures and even stranger outcomes. Just when you think you've figured out this world and this plot, Pratchett turns his story upside down to see what shakes out.For sheer escapism and entertainment, it doesn't get much better.
    • 4/5
      I think this book has completely sold the Discworld series to me! I liked it a lot. It was hilarious at times, it wasn't hard to get into the story at all and the storyline would be interesting in itself even without Pratchetts dry wit!
    • 3/5
      The first novel of Discworld, a flat-disc world balanced on 4 elephants who themselves are balanced on the back of a turtle is an interesting take on the fantasy genre.It seems to be a parody of the fantasy genre. Twoflower,the tourist,is being shown around the planet by Rincewind, the wizard, who only knows one spell. I really enjoy fantasy novels, but this book was intensely hard to get into. I kept dreading picking it back up to continue, but I vowed to finish it because the series is so loved (and despised), and I wanted to know why. As I continued to read, I began to get the humor. British humor is a slightly tough for me; I had enough trouble getting through Hitchhiker's books. Nevertheless, it was worth it in the end and I'm going to read the 2nd book in the series. I hear the following novels are a bit more readable. Non-fantasy and younger readers will have a hard time with the book even though it has some funny lines in it. My fave: "Discworld: where the gods are not so much worshiped as blamed."
    • 3/5
      Fun. I enjoy the sheer energetic invention of it, though it reads like Pratchett was trying to cram all of Discworld's features into one novel, not knowing that he'd write, what, 36 more novels about it in the years to come.
    • 4/5
      Quirky book that had several short stories which built upon each other. Definitely not high fantasy, but funny and vividly creative.
    • 3/5
      It was about time. For nearly two years The Colour of Magic stood on my bookshelf and finally I managed to read the whole thing. I read the German translation once and then bought the English version, started reading, but finished halfway through. Now I finally re-read the first novel of the Discwolrd series completely.First thing: the German translation wasn’t as funny as the original. So I’m – again – reassured that translations are not as good as the real deal. That said - the novel itself: I’m not completely satisfied with the start of the series for I had the constant feeling that Pratchett just sewed together some previously written short stories. Next to the main characters the plot is jumpy and inconclusive. For example: Twoflower talks in his native tongue in the beginning and isn’t able to communicate with other figures, some pages later there is no language barrier at all and even Hrun the barbarian understands him. That’s not precisely a sign of vigiliant writing. The seperate short stories itself are not too bad. Some are better than others, but each one of them is funny and shows lots of good ideas. I think – as measured by the success of the Discworld series – that the following novels are better. The foundation – anyway – is very solid and I’m curious to read the next books.
    • 4/5
      A good book, promising better books to follow.My reading of Terry Pratchett is embarrassingly long overdue. But I'm glad that I had by now gained a general idea of what I was going to be reading before I read it. The book is not meant to be taken seriously. It is meant to be fun and to make you think. It is very imaginative (which is a praise few books truly deserve), but it feels almost amateurish in the handling of the material. The imaginings could be more polished and better written, it feels, but that the book isn't serious enough to bother to do so. However, the book isn't serious about itself, but the reader shouldn't be serious about the book, basically eliminating the problem. So it's still fun to read, but the logical part of the brain has that funny itch of knowing that something is out of place.I do have high hopes for the following books, however. It feels as though Pratchett in this book is just touching the surface of his new world and is just skimming the surface of his imagination. I've already started the next book, and the four following I just now received in my mail, so I hope to review those as well, and we'll see if my presumptions prove true.
    • 3/5
      As much as I would like to give Sir Terry Pratchett 5 out of 5 stars on everything he writes. It wouldn't be realistic. This is his first Book on discworld, and it shows. While being very entertaining, it still was not up to the level of his later books. At this point he was not yet accused of writing litrature. I still enjoyed it. Though the plot did seem to jump about in leaps and bounds, like a gazelle on a roller coaster. It had little to keep the different story parts together other than Rincewind the Wizzard. (as marvelous as he is)
    • 4/5
      The Color of Magic is the first book in the Discworld series, and while it is not necessary to start from the beginning, I think it serves as an excellent starting point. This book marks the beginning of the Rincewind story line. The protagonist of this novel, Rincewind, is a incompetent wizard and likely the worlds largest coward. However, he continually finds himself in positions where heros would be much more comfortable and must deal with these as they come.The book has some very solid fantasy elements and the world itself is very full of magic, but the story goes much further than that. It is told a really funny at satirical way that raises the level of enjoyment. The book is more of a spoof of the fantasy genere than it is a fantasy novel in itself. However, at the same time, the world is very well developed in a meaningful and interesting way. Additionally, the characters are all very interesting and developed fairly well (for example, a suitcase with a real personality). There is a lot to enjoy here for not only the fantasy fan, but also for those just looking for a well told story.
    • 4/5
      This is a fantasy tale set in Discworld which is a worlds in the shape of a disc balanced on four elephants who are in turn standing on a giant turtle. [The Colour of Magic] tells the story of the adventures of Rincewind, a wizard with no powers living in the twin cities of Ankh-Morpork, Twoflower, a tourist from the Golden Empire visiting Ankh and his luggage.A fast paced and comical story which will keep you turning the pages.
    • 3/5
      I liked it well enough, but I enjoyed the Watch books much better. Ankh-Morpork is just such a fun setting for a book, and almost none of this one takes place there.
    • 3/5
      Twoflower the tourist and Rincewind the wizard star in this, the first of the Discworld epic series. A bit slow to get started, not as clever as some of the later books, but still worth reading.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book and Pratchett's writing style. SO GOOD!!!
    • 3/5
      Interesting to pick up, good imagination to create and weave together, but it didn't catch me and engage me enough to want more.