On the HahaFiction shelf
The Colour of Magic
Discworld · Book 1 · 1983
Audiobook available · 7 hr 58 min
Rincewind is a wizard with very little magic to offer and a dangerous assignment: keep Discworld’s first tourist alive. Twoflower wants to see the sights, accompanied by a trunk that walks on its own legs. Their route crosses a flat world balanced on elephants and an enormous turtle.
From the publisher’s blurb
“the first book in the Wizards series”Read the full description at Penguin description
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What makes it funny?
As a city burns, two adventurers mourn the treasure and wine going up in flames, then remember an unpaid debt. Rincewind has a different practical problem: he is already so terrified that he cannot give new threats the frightened response they deserve.
The comedy at work
Pratchett puts ordinary self-interest into the poses of heroic fantasy. His adventurers think about their finances, his wizard wants to escape, and a tourist’s fire-insurance transaction has consequences the local innkeeper takes far too literally.
Try this if…
Fantasy readers who enjoy watching adventurers make a mess of their travels have plenty to work with here. The story moves through successive dangers with a poorly equipped guide and a tourist whose innocence keeps creating trouble.
Good to know
This begins Discworld’s Wizards sequence. In the 2022 unabridged audiobook, Colin Morgan reads the story, Bill Nighy handles the footnotes, and Peter Serafinowicz voices Death.
A few distinguishing details
- A walking trunk that follows its owner
- Heroic fantasy viewed through greed and cowardice
More funny fantasy
Sources & further reading
- Author estate
Author commentary
- Publisher
Publisher
- Authorized excerpt
Reading sample
- Kirkus review
Review
- Publisher audiobook
Publisher
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