The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Color of Magic
Book Review: Pratchett - originally brilliant from the word go!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the first in Pratchett's ever increasing series of Discworld novels. Rincewind the failed wizzard (sic) and Twoflower: the Disc's first tourist, run a rag tag, whistlestop tour of the universe's most unlikely planet, only just escaping with their lives - or not as the case may be (can you die of Scrofula?). Carried on the back of four elephants who in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle; the Discworld is the perfect setting for this series of wonderfully funny and very entertaining stories. In this, the first ever Discworld novel, Pratchett is at his wry best. Poking fun at fantasy and sending up such classics as The Lord of the Rings, he takes the reader on a breath-taking and highly amuzing journey through a land of inept heroes, wizards who can't do magic and second-rate dragons. Fantastic!Book Review: An Interesting start to a terrific series
Summary: 4 Stars
I must admit it is a while now since I have read this particular Terry Pratchett book, and I find it one of his least good discworld books. This does not mean that it isn't extremely funny and well written, just not as good as some of the others (my personal favourites being Wyrd Sisters, Guards, Guards, Reaper Man, Men at Arms and Jingo, and, well, most of the rest!). There is something more self concious about this and The Light Fantastic, which, thankfully is lost in the later books. I must say that as a great fan of the Anne McCaffrey Dragons of Pern series, I could see a definite mickey taking in the scenes in the Wyrmberg. I have always found that the one thing that the Pern series lacked was an ability to laugh at itself, so Pratchett does it for it instead.Book Review: pleasant whimsy, flatfooted humour
Summary: 2 Stars
The whimsy is very light, easy and pleasant, but the humour is predictable and formulaic. And the humour is a major compoment of the content.Book Review: Wacky, wild and hilarious!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am disappointed to see that other reviewers have rated this clever book so lowly! I, personally, think that this and The Light Fantastic are two of the best Discworld books. The books are both well-written, witty and amusing - no, more than that, wonderfully funny with outrageous characters!Book Review: Tripe! Umberto Eco it isn't.
Summary: 1 Stars
I'd heard and seen a lot about Terry Pratchett (not least here on Amazon) and thought I'd finally give him a whirl. I gave my first Pratchett book 'Jingo' one crown/star and put its poor quality down to Pratchett lazily churning out formulaic books with diminishing originality and inspiration. Having read 'Colour of Magic' I now realise that Jingo represented a significant improvement in, and honing of, Pratchett's writing abilities. Jingo deserved 2 crowns, 'Colour of Magic' would be flattered by one! I'm glad I started with Jingo because, on the strength of 'C of M', I would have given Pratchett a very wide berth indeed. For those who are naturally considering starting their Pratchett reading with his first Discworld novel I'll try and summarise the book for you: imagine a Douglas Adams book set in Middle Earth with the depth of storytelling of 'The Magic Faraway Tree' and you'll be somewhere close.
I really can't understand the readers' comments which include words like "fantastic", "well written" or "clever". And if this is one of the best books you've read or its main figures represent some of the best characters in any book you've read then....you really should read more.
The plot dissipates dreadfully and dies a long, agonising death - petering out as soon as the characters leave Ankh Morpork. It was never resolved in any way. Did I say 'characters'? Only Rincewind and Twoflowers displayed any effort to add any dimension to their character - there were plenty of potential characters in the book but none were developed past the briefest of physical descriptions (all of which seemed for some reason to begin with, "..(s)he was completely naked except for a tiny....").
The luggage character was another vaguely good idea but was woefully underused in its intended comedy sidekick role - it just kept appearing every now and then and was more of an irritation than anything else - sort of a Jar Jar Binks meets Scrappy Doo!
The development of the characters of Rincewind and Twoflowers or more importantly their relationship - which given that the book was really a sort of 'road movie' should have been central to the story - was absolutely non-existent. I'm still trying to work out what the point of the book was. There was no obvious message or theme (as there at least was in Jingo) - was it just Terry Pratchett scribbling down a wild flurry of half-formed ideas about a Steven Donaldson spoof and then roughly splicing them together? The story stumbled from one completely unrelated thumbnail sketch of an undeveloped sub-plot to the next. Even as a frivolous and fun read, this is very, very thin indeed.