Date Finished: 14/02/2011
My Rating: 3/5
I have history with this book. When I was in my early teens my dad tried to get me to read it, being pretty sure that I would like Terry Pratchett. I just couldn't get started with it at all. Then, a few years later the amateur dramatic company I was in at the time staged a production of Pratchett's 'Wyrd Sisters'. I read that book and absolutely loved it, and so began my love affair with Terry Pratchett. I caught up with all his other books that he'd written and then went back to the Colour of Magic, determined not to leave any unread. I managed to get through it, but even after getting used to Pratchett's style of writing and the characters and such like, I found it tough going. Even when I read it for a second time during my first attempt at the Big Read, I found it tough going.
When Sky did their production of it with David Jason, I watched it and thought it was pretty good actually. My favourite of the discworld books are the ones that focus on the guards or the witches, and the wizard ones are my least favourite, so that may have been why I struggled with it each time I tried to read it.
Nevertheless, I settled down with it this time round and got through it relatively quickly. For me, the Colour of Magic doesn't read as well as the other discworld books. It is almost as if Pratchett hasn't quite got into the flow of the characters and the language of his subsequent stories. I don't know whether it is because I'm a bit older this time round, or because I haven't read any other Pratchett books for a while, but I definitely enjoyed it more than I was expecting, and laughed out loud at parts. I wonder if my fellow bus users are getting used to my outbursts yet...
So, who should read this book? Anyone that has read some Pratchett before. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to first-time Pratchetters. It might put you off the rest of them, and that would never do!
Next Book: The Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
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