The Color of Magic

The first edition hard cover.

The Color of Magic, spelled The Colour of Magic in the UK, is a comedic novel by Terry Pratchett and the first book in the Discworld series, published in 1983.

I first picked this book up because my girlfriend at the time bought it. She was a huge fan of Good Omens and wanted to read more books by Pratchett. I didn't have a chance to read much of it, and, finding the first couple pages dull, didn't read any further. Later, a co-worker of mine who was a huge Pratchett fan and had read every one of the Discworld books continued to rave about him. Later still, I decided to give the book another chance and read it. It was funny, but not great.

Status

I do not own this book, but have listened to an audio book recording.

Review

Good

• Overall, the book is really funny. There are a lot of small jokes, ironic jokes, plays on tropes, etc. I chortled many times. Pratchett makes some hilarious descriptions.
• Basing the world on real-life myths is a staple of fiction, but using the most ridiculous myths, like that the earth is supported by four giant elephants riding a huge turtle, was genius!
• The way Pratchett bases magic on scientific principles is pretty cool.
• The description of the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth, talking about all objects based around nine minus one and the square root of 64 was funny.
• Death is a hilarious character.

Bad

• I don't care much for childish silly humor, and there was a fair amount of it with Twoflower and his trunk.
• The book becomes rather hard to follow in the later portion when the characters are jumping between dimensions and the time line gets jumbled up.
• If sapient pearwood is nearly extinct, entirely magic proof, and extremely valuable, how does a middle-class wizard like Twoflower have a trunk made out of it?
• I didn't care much for the ending which leaves a lot of loose ends.

Ugly

• Nothing

Cover Art

• 

  The first edition UK hard cover depicts a scene in the book, but I don't care much for the art style, and graphically, I find there is too much going on.

• 

  The UK paperback is a less-cluttered version of the original art. I still don't care for the art, but I like the layout more.

• 

  The UK special edition. Quite boring, really.

• 

  I think this is the US hard cover. It nicely depicts the psychedelic turtle, elephants, and flat Discworld, with what appears to be, an octarine lens flare.

• 

  The North American paperback cover is graphically pleasant, but an awful representation of the book. The modern suitcase does not fit at all.

• 

  An earlier US mass market cover. It depicts the imaginary dragon escape scene. Nice color usage, but the dragon looks goofy.

• 

  The US mass market cover is just as bad, although, I like the Discworld stickers on the suitcase.

• 

  Unknown region, appears to be US, but uses UK spelling. This is my favorite cover. It plays on Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, but uses a turtle and four elephants.

• 

  Unknown region. The characters and luggage are fitting. And although the woodblock art is quite skilled, I don't like the style for a book cover.

Links

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colour_of_Magic - Wikipedia.