14th June 2025

I have been a Terry Pratchett fan for many years, and now occasionally find myself able to pick up one of his earlier novels that I’ve not yet read. This is the earliest.

It’s the story of a young hereditary ruler of a planet in a universe of Humans and non-Humans, struggling as he’s caught between two different destinies, and also his grandmother.

Although it’s short, I found it a challenge to read. It feels of its time in many ways - there’s a dense style to 70s science fiction and fantasy that I find hard to navigate, and I think Pratchett at this point was early in his learning curve for what would become his later style. It’s also ahead of its time in many way as well - there’s elements of the classic turning of things on their head, which he comes back to again in the early Discworld novels. There’s also a surprising number of things that later turn up, recycled and repurposed, in the Discworld series.

It was an interesting read, but I think if I’d started reading here instead of with his later novels, I’d probably not have come back to Pratchett, and would have missed out on his other brilliant output.

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18th January 2025

I read the other two Johnny Maxwell novels, which follow this, as a child, but somehow have never ended up reading this, despite consuming the vast majority of Terry Pratchett's novels since. This then presented itself to me in a charity shop not long after discussing it with a friend, so home it came with me to be read.

It's the tale of a generic pre-teenage nerd at some point in the late 20th century, who is content to play counterfeit video games until suddenly it doesn't seem much of a game any more.

There's a lot going on in the story. It seems to somehow collect the youth experience of the time, which feels very relatable, but also to wrap it in discussions of the ills of the world from loads of different directions, all of which still feel very relevant today.

Pratchett's abillity to build a world in the background, never explciitly telling us things, but still painting the picture, is really clever and I feel like I might need to come back to this book again to capture and digest more of it.

Really good storytelling, and I'm glad that I occasionally get to experience these nuggets of Pratchett's writing tht I've not experienced before.

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31st December 2023

Generally considered to be the best Discworld novel, Night Watch follows Samuel Vimes - a character we’ve watched grow for some years now - as he is transported back in time to encounter his much much younger self.

There’s a lot going on, and even on a second read I’m sure I’ve barely scratched the surface. At its most basic, it’s Back To The Future, and Vimes needs to make sure his future is waiting when he gets back. But it’s also a political thriller, it’s also Les Miserables, it’s also a commentary on society.

But it also feels long - longer than I feel is normal for Discworld novels and longer than I was expecting. I suppose really it’s only taken me four days to read but that feels like longer than it should have.

And while the jokes are there, I don’t think it feels as funny as other books in the series - there’s a lot of heavy, serious stuff, and that detracts from the humour. It’s certainly still very clever in the use of language and in its observation of the human condition, but I wasn’t laughing out loud.

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22nd January 2023

In my gradual re-read of Discworld’s Watch novels I’ve reached The Fifth Elephant, which is one that I have the least memory of from my previous reading which must have been around 15 years ago.

It’s a tale of diplomacy, as Vimes is sent to Uberwald for the coronation of the Low King. As such, it does that classic Vimes thing of putting him in an awkward situation and letting his character flow.

I found it a bit harder to get going than some Discworld novels, and it wasn’t until around halfway that I properly started to accelerate through. I don’t think it has quite the relaxed readability of some of the novels - there’s a lot starting to go on at a deeper level in this part of the series, and fewer quick surface level jokes.

Overall though, it’s a solid mystery story, with a fantastic amount of world building and proper exploration of several of the favourite Discworld characters.

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6th February 2022

My loosely focussed Discworld re-read has reached Jingo, a novel which I don’t think I was sure about the first time, but did enjoy on second reading.

Pratchett’s wit and insight into the human condition fill the pages, nothing here is more glorious than the character interactions, particularly between Colon and Nobbs, and it’s amazing how much is subtly communicated to the reader just in the dialogue.

I think where this one suffers a little is in the plot. It’s more complicated I think than many Discworld novels, with multiple layers of plot lasagne’d together in such a way that I’m not sure I really know what’s at the bottom.

But it does do well at holding up a mirror to roundworld, and pointing out the absurdities of war, property, and international relationships, while also condemning racism, a theme that runs throughout Pratchett’s work.

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4th July 2021

Needing a break from heavier tomes, I returned to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, and re-read Monstrous Regiment. Mostly a stand-alone tale from the Disc, although a couple of the Watch characters do appear, this is the tale of the classic rag-tag group who sign up for the army near the end of the war, when hope is wavering, to escape a variety of elements of their lives.

As expected, it was an enjoyable return to the Disc. There’s so much going on in the story and with the characters, that reading these stories again is never disappointing. My memory of the story was limited to just the very broadest strokes, so while I wasn’t surprised by the main plot line, this gave me the ability to focus on and notice more of the little moments between the characters.

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13th September 2020

After reading the Discworld series in order the first time, I’m now enjoying a more serendipitous trip through some of the novels, and have arrived at this, the third Watch novel, in which Vimes is challenged by a secret rebellion, as well as some suspicious deaths in Ankh Morpork.

Like many Pratchett novels, there is a lot going on. This book seems to challenge any number of different issues - sexism, racism, monarchy, reproductive rights. And all that wrapped up in a compelling story and an engaging narrative that one several occasions had me thinking “just until the end of the chapter” at bedtime (before of course remembering that Pratchett does not typically write in chapters).

And of course it almost goes without saying that it’s funny. Pratchett manages to write some of the most amusing sentences, and make the most profound yet laugh-out-loud observations using his characters.

I’m consistently delighted by my return trips to the Discworld, and look forward to finding out which one is going to leap off the shelf and demand to be read next.

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