Pratchett Essentials

[polymorphikos]

Any one of the Rincewind books, although best read in order. Of these, Eric is my favourite.

[smeg]

got to be the city watch novels

guards guards

men at arms

feet of clay

jingo

the fifth elephant

[BandSmurf]

Hehe... now that I can do these properly... my 2 cents are that each subgroup needs to be read in order for full appreciation, whatever order you'd prefer to read the subgroups in is up to you. And these first books are... *drumroll*

The Colour of Magic (Rincewind)
Equal Rites (The Witches)
Mort (DEATH)
Guards! Guards! (The Night Watch)
Moving Pictures (????)

I dont' know what the last subgroup is really characterized by, but it seems to be growing too rapidly to ignore.

~BandSmurf

[Brys]

For intelligent humour (in certain stories at least), try Fritz Leiber. The last two stories in Swords Against Death were hilarious - much moreso than Pratchett, even if they don't last long. Anyway, the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories are excellent, though when Leiber puts in humour they are extremely funny. I've only read the Colour of Magic so far though. And Pratchett did make a slight reference to them - Bravd and Weasel were basically take offs of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

[Leto]

Not the best. Go directly to the Watch ones as "Guards, Guards". or "Men at arms". They're good and quite Leiber inspired (not copyied, inspired).

[Thadlerian]

I would recommend non-Discworld series like Johnny Maxwell and Bromeliad. Somehow these young fantasy books seem more mature than many Discworld. They have more serious stories and themes, more believeable (if less comical) characters, and, finally, more nerve.

Also look out for A Hat Full of Sky.

[Brys]

I'm reading Guards! Guards! at the moment, and I can see why it's so highly recommended - it is very funny with some classic moments. I'm now much more enthusiastic about Pratchett, but the same flaws that are in some of his other work are still here - it's longer than it needs to be, which detracts from it (I'm starting to feel that you can't keep up decent humour for 400 pages).
As it's the only Pratchett I've really enjoyed (other than Good Omens with Neil Gaiman), I'd definitely suggest starting with Guards! Guards!

[hermi-nomi]

Oh, I always have difficulty with recommending 'top 5s' but like Bandsmurf I would suggest reading the first book of each 'grouping'. A lot of people say to go for the stand alone books first, and that is all very well, or you could simply chose to read the things in the correct order (but we all know that librarys never, ever stock the second and third books in a series so this would present difficulites.) So go for 1) Guards! Guards! (fav 'Watch' book? Feet of Clay) 2) Equal Rites (Witches) 3) The Light Fantastic (Rincewind/Wizards) and 4) Mort (Death)

Stand Alones? Pyramids, Soul Music, Hogfather, Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal and Sourcery (although these may come under, 'Watch', 'Death', 'Wizard' or 'Patrician'.) Plus of course the Tiffany Aching books ('Witches')

[Mulch]

Go for the nightwatch, it's a much darker novel than the others and is equally funny.

[The Time Traveller]

I started with Equal Rites and found okay and probably wound not have read another Pratchett book until I found Moving Pictures as an audiobook on tape. It converted me instantly. I've read about 10 of the Disc's books since and really liked:

Moving Pictures
A Hatful of Sky
Guards, Guards
Going Postal


Most of these I listened to as Audiobooks. Unabridged of course. There's a few publishers that's done these. The new ones by HarperAudio read by Stephen Briggs are excellent. The old ones read by Isis audio are really good, I think the narrator was Nigel Planer (according to Amazon I'm all wrong about the publisher and narrator though). There are ones done by multiply narrators a few years ago by Fantastic Audio which I didn't care for. Whenever they switched narrators I had to ask myself why. Ultimately a distraction from the story.

[Snapdragon]

My top five that I would recommend to get would be:

Guards Guards
Night Watch
The Truth
The Fifth Elephant
Feet of Clay

[wonko]

Hogfather
Hogfather
Hogfather
Hogfather
and, last but not least
Witches Abroad

[YOSSARIAN]

Does no one here consider Monstrous Regiment to be a top-fiver? I've only read probably half of the Discworld books, but I like Monstrous Regiment, Soul Music, and Going Postal the most.

[Winters_Sorrow]

Interesting.
The three novels you mentioned are all primarily around distinct "one-off" characters, which the exception of Death's long cameo in Soul Music.
I agree because they had new characters and helped expand the Discworld universe, but my favourite Discworld novel is Small Gods (also a one-off)

But then the rest of my top five are as follows:
Jingo
Reaper Man
Interesting Times
Witches Abroad

[BUGGRIT OFFENDI]

i would suggest

small gods
going postel (on newer novel from 2004 i believe...)
witches abroad i found hilarious
and if u like his writing good omens is hilarious but its on earth..

death is one of my fav characters so reaper man is really funny,,, death takes a vacation is really funny as well as hogfather where death has to do the job os the hogfather which is the discworld version of santa clause..i think hogfather was one of my fav books