RERELEASE: The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett

Your hosts read The Color of Magic, the first Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. They talk about their own familiarity with the series, give the advice to not start with book 1 if you're starting to read the series, and compare how different the structure is for this story compared to the rest of the series. 

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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

Transcript

Lilly 0:04

and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily,

Sara 0:10

and I'm Sarah, and today we're re-releasing an episode that we recorded when we first started the podcast.

Lilly 0:16

so we won't be doing our quick five minute intro this time.

Sara 0:20

During the first year of the podcast, we combined two book conversations into each episode along with some related segments like Pet Peeve Corner, and words are weird.

Lilly 0:30

We decided to republish those conversations as separate episodes to give those books a better chance to shine.

Sara 0:36

These have been slightly remastered, but you can still enjoy our Peak 2021 Microphone Technology.

Lilly 0:43

If you want to listen to the original double feature, these are episodes two through 23 in our podcast feed.

Sara 0:50

And as always, come disagree with us.

Lilly 0:53

So this segment was actually the foundational concept for this entire podcast, and we have clearly gotten away from ourselves. This is our pet peeve corner where we complain about stuff that we find in stuff we read. That's it. That's the whole, that's the whole thing.

Sara 1:13

That's the shtick.

Lilly 1:14

Sarah, do you have anything to complain about today?

Sara 1:19

I do, I do. So I was reading a story on a oh three of fan fiction, and I didn't notice this in the first chapter, but I got to the second chapter and I noticed that there were no capital letters used at all in this thick, and I just, I could not, I tried and I could not read it. So back button hit, I moved on with my life.

Lilly 1:47

Okay, but like even. Even autocorrect will capitalize stuff. You have to try to not capitalize. Like, I don't even understand how that happens.

Sara 1:59

yeah, like I, I think it was definitely intentional, but. So it was a stylistic choice that they made, but it was not a stylistic choice that I liked, and I didn't mind it so much in the first chapter because I think they didn't use, like I could get if it was just the beginnings of sentences that weren't capitalized. I could maybe get past that, but they weren't capitalizing like names either. And the second chapter used a lot of names and I just, it was too much. I need some capitals in my life.

Lilly 2:33

Homophones, we've all learned that sometimes words sound the same but are not the same word. And if it happens once, it's fine. It's a mistake. I, you know, get over it. Everyone makes mistakes, but if they use the same. Word a couple of times. I, I can't, I cannot do it. That's not true. I still read it. I'm just mad the whole time. The most jarring one that I run into when you're reading romance is he grabbed her waist because, you

Sara 3:08

Yeah.

Lilly 3:08

you grabbed her waist, it's an embrace except they spell it waist as in trash or bodily waist, which is an even worse mental image. And it, it just completely takes me out of the story. Like I cannot I am taking full credit for the name of this segment and I'm sure you're happy to give it to me 'cause it's lame. So, but it's mine. God damn it. it is our first step. Is it the journey of a of a hundred books starts with a single page? That's the quote, right? I'm sure I got it right. We are embarking on our journey to the center of the disc world and it's fun 'cause it doesn't even make sense because there's not a center 'cause it's a disc world. Like it, it's nonsense on every level.

Sara 4:07

I mean, even discs have centers There is technically a center.

Lilly 4:12

That's true. But the center of the earth is the core of the earth. That's the original, the reference. It's,

Sara 4:18

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's not a core.

Lilly 4:20

I just thought it would be fun. We've both read these books. It's been a while. I haven't actually read all of them. So there are gonna be some of these. No.

Sara 4:31

really, which, what, what did you stop with?

Lilly 4:35

I mean, I've kind of read a random scattering of them, that it's just there. There are holes is all I'm gonna say. There are holes in my repertoire, if you will, but this is gonna be a great time to read them all finally, and then also reread the ones that I've written a hundred times before, but we're embarking on a journey to the center of the disc world, which to use, not nonsense words for everyone else. Disc World is a series of books by Terry prt, who is a British, I don't even wanna like sci-fi author. That's not quite right. Comedy writer.

Sara 5:16

That's not, I mean, I, I think that sci-fi author is, is the closest that you can get.

Lilly 5:22

It's not wrong.

Sara 5:24

I, I mean, his, his books kind of defy genre in many ways.

Lilly 5:30

Well, and there are a parody also. You know, he's, he's parodying so many tropes of science, fiction and fantasy throughout the series. Which I'm gonna have so much fun being obnoxious about Buckle up. But the very first book is The Color of Magic, and it came out in, I just looked at this page now I already forgot. 1983, the one, correct.

Sara 5:59

is the one.

Lilly 6:01

And before we get to talking about this book in particular you had a Twitter conversation the other day regarding which Disc World book you should start with. And I think we should talk a little bit about that. There's not gonna be much nons spoiler conversation for this book. Read this world. If you haven't listened to this anyway, and then read it they're all good. I, I don't feel like the story is as, what am I trying to say? The journey is the fun part of Terry prt. His language is phenomenal and hilarious. Like knowing how it ends is not gonna ruin it for you.

Sara 6:41

I feel like a lot of his books, because they play on well-known tropes, like you can kind of point out what the plot progression is. So it doesn't matter if you know like how, how the story is gonna end because he makes you interested in how it gets there.

Lilly 6:57

Exactly. And we're about to encourage you to not even start in order, which means you're gonna know how other stuff happened. Like, because he has these like sort of chunks of stories that take place on this earth, on this, in this place, on this.

Sara 7:15

on the disc

Lilly 7:16

Turtle on the disc world you end up spoiling yourself, or at least I did because I would read one character's set and they would mention another character who is apparently has this one job. But then when I went and started their series, they weren't there yet. So I knew which job they would get to eventually, and that was fine. Like that it, it wasn't a problem. Maybe you can give me just like a one sentence, if X is your thing, maybe we can come up with one together if X is your thing, or if you like x, read the color of magic.

Sara 7:51

I don't have a, I don't have a short promo that I can use for that because I think that you will enjoy the color of magic more if you are familiar with his other work. Like I don't think that the color of magic is where you should start. I think that that once you have read. Some of this world, you should come back to the color of magic.

Lilly 8:14

It is very much an exploration of the setting very fundamentally.

Sara 8:20

He is, he's definitely finding his feet with the color of magic. Like he doesn't quite know how the world is going to shape up and for example, ank more pork. The pretty much the, the main city that a lot of the characters are from or are in in the later series is much more, I don't wanna say comedically, grimy, but like over the top grimy. And there are bits of the city that are clean in this book, which is a change. But I think that if you enjoy like. Pastiche of other genres. This is a good book for you because he is, it's a very clear pastiche of a lot of different genres

Lilly 9:13

the sort of driving force of this book is that a tourist comes to on more pork, right? And so we get to see this city through the eyes of a tourist and

Sara 9:27

except that much of, much of this story takes place not in work. That

Lilly 9:32

but that's how we're starting.

Sara 9:33

how we start.

Lilly 9:34

And then he's a tourist of everywhere. And to flower is this tourist, his name is to flower. And isn't, isn't he really all of us? Aren't we all to flower? Who hasn't thought, man, I'd like to meet a dragon. Like, you know, that that is who we are as readers of, of fantasy and sci-fi, experiencing these worlds thinking, oh, it would be so fun to drink a pint of mead down at the, you know, the Grimy Inn. Like that, that is who we are. And then we have this person going through and doing that and all of the people of this world just thinking he's completely bonkers and it's so much fun. And, and then of course, you know, the, the recurring joke that they don't know what a tourist is and that I, I, it's not something that comes up, it's not something that comes up in a lot of his books. But with Two Flower you see a lot the, there are concepts like modern. Real world concepts that he brings up because he is us, not actually us. He's from Disc world, just a different continent. He's an insurance agent and no one knows what insurance is, and he tries to explain it as gambling that your tavern won't burn down. And so the tavern owner is like, yeah, I'll make that bet. And then burns his tavern down. Like it's just So the true masterful parody is being able to take the familiar and make it unfamiliar. And Terry PRT does that in such a delightful way in this book.

Sara 11:25

Yes, I agree with you. I, but I think that this book is a lot more unrefined than his later work.

Lilly 11:34

Oh, I agree completely.

Sara 11:35

Yeah. Like I, I think, I think that he gets a lot better at weaving the parody in, in such a way that you, you get it, but it doesn't feel unnatural. And this book, kind of like you, you feel the parody bludgeoning you over the head a little bit.

Lilly 11:51

Two Flower is literally a tourist walking into a tavern going, I want to see a bar fight. Like it's much more absurd, and everything Terry PRT does is absurd, but it is, it is ridiculous in a way that I feel like in his later books, the story takes itself more seriously and we as the readers know the parody. Whereas in this, everyone is aware of how ridiculous the situation is.

Sara 12:20

Yeah. Yeah. I, I also feel that in later books, he's just parroting like one thing generally, like, and in this, so unlike a lot of his later disc World books, this is actually divided into chapters. And to me it feels more like a series of short stories that are brought together in one publication than like a continuous, cohesive plot. Because it, it feels like he's reintroducing the characters and the concepts in each sort of like short arc. And each arc is also like parroting a different genre. Like the, the first chapter wi or the first arc that takes place in on more pork or around on more pork is like parroting, you know, Dungeons and Dragons and that sort of thing. Like they even have a line about failing a role for initiative,

Lilly 13:14

Yeah.

Sara 13:15

he has a line about failing a role for initiative. And then you have the, the next section, which is like a parody of like Lovecraft and then you have the parody of, of Ann McCaffrey and the Dragon Writers of Per, and then you have kind of the, the Jules Vern parody. So it, it feels a lot more segmented than some of his other work.

Lilly 13:37

I, I feel like it almost is a proof of concept because the rest of Disc world is the, this exact same idea. You know, he does Phantom of the Opera. He does more that I can't think of at the moment.

Sara 13:50

Macbeth.

Lilly 13:50

oh yes, he does. Macbeth.

Sara 13:54

Hollywood,

Lilly 13:55

Oh my God. There we go. There's so many. They're all so good. I have read those. See, I've, I've read most of them. There's just a couple weird gaps, but he does each one as its own book. Whereas in this, he's sort of like, he's playing with the concept like, does this have legs? He's throwing it all at the wall and seeing what sticks, and the answer is all of it. So now he can like actually take his time.

Sara 14:19

Yeah. But, but that's part of why I feel like this is not the book that you should, even though it's like going by publication date. This is the first book that was published. That's part of why I feel like it's not the book that you should start with because he is just throwing things at the wall. And so if you come to the more polished stuff, then you can go back and say, oh, I see where he kind of got. Like how he started and I can appreciate this sort of more diamond in the rough than I would if I maybe started. I say that, but that's actually, I started with the color of magic. I read in, in publication order, but I don't think that's how one should start.

Lilly 14:59

I, I marked death's intro just because I thought it was interesting.

Sara 15:04

Yeah. In, in later series, I feel like he's a lot more I don't wanna say methodical, but he, he doesn't take life randomly in later series. It's all governed by like, is it your time to die, essentially. And in, in this book, he just kind of like kills people 'cause he gets annoyed, which is very different.

Lilly 15:25

Yeah. The rules haven't been established yet.

Sara 15:28

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lilly 15:29

I also completely forgot about the board game thing. The, the sort of conceit that the gods are playing a board game and the characters in this book are being affected by the moves they make and the dice they roll, which is very silly and fun, but also it tries to do too much. I think

Sara 15:52

Yeah.

Lilly 15:53

there's like, there are so many little snippets of gold, but none of them really get the time to shine.

Sara 15:58

It's hard to talk about the color of magic in a whole lot more detail 'cause it's not really a very meaty book, as we've said.

Lilly 16:08

I love rids wind. He is such an ass. How many times does he ditch two flour because it's not worth it. Two flour is running into danger and rinse, wind knows better. And he's just like, no, I'm out.

Sara 16:24

I mean, part of part of what makes friends win such an interesting character is that like he tries to avoid these horrible situations and he just like. Through no fault of his own, he gets put in them, but he knows they're horrible and he, the whole time he is like, how can I, how can I like get out of

Lilly 16:41

It's not that character where you think you're only here because you did the stupid, obviously like the stupid thing that you obviously shouldn't do. And he is cruel for ditching to flower who kind of needs him as this tour guide, you know? But you also understand like, yeah, he recognizes that he's in way over his head and I respect his

Sara 17:04

Yeah.

Lilly 17:04

his decision making in that regard.

Sara 17:07

He, he did the math.

Lilly 17:09

It doesn't make him a good person though.

Sara 17:11

No, and he, he is, he's very objectively, like all he cares about is saving his own skin, which you would think on the surface that wouldn't make for a good character to read about, but it actually really works with wind because he is not malicious about it and he is so sort of bumbling and.

Lilly 17:27

Yeah. He doesn't go out of his way to screw anyone over.

Sara 17:30

Right. And he's also just kind of bumbling and incompetent. I mean, not necessarily intentionally so, but it just sort of happens.

Lilly 17:39

that's who he is, right. He was the forever, he got kicked out of Wizard School. He flunked out of Co, out Wizard College.

Sara 17:47

he did. Flunk out of Wizard College.

Lilly 17:48

that's exactly who he is. He's just kind of incompetent and, but he knows like he doesn't, but he knows it. That's mean. But it's true. He's not in these situations because he thinks he's all powerful. He's in these situations 'cause he couldn't avoid them.

Sara 18:06

to be fair. To be fair, part of the reason why he flunked out of Wizard School, and I feel like this is n. Maybe a little minimized in the later books. Like it doesn't, but it's where, where in the later books he flunk out of Wizard School because of this, but also like, just 'cause he was generally bad at magic to begin with. But in this, the main reason why he flunked out of Wizard School is because he has this one spell. He, he knows this one spell, but it's too powerful and it won't let him like memorize any other spell. So he couldn't do magic after that.

Lilly 18:36

So the, the way he memorized it is on a drunk. He was drunkenly dared by his, I'm gonna call him frat buddies. I'm sure PRT doesn't call him that, but it's the spirit of the

Sara 18:49

There probably, Yeah.

Lilly 18:51

To crack open the like forbidden grise that contains the eight spells that created the universe, the octavo. And so rinse wind opens it, and the spell just jumps into his head. Poor rinse, wind.

Sara 19:09

Poor wind. Yep.

Lilly 19:15

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Sara 19:19

Come disagree with us! We're on Blue Sky and Instagram, at fictionfanspod. You can also email us at fictionfanspod at gmail. com. Or leave a comment on YouTube.

Lilly 19:30

If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Sara 19:38

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.

Lilly 19:44

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated.

Sara 19:48

Bye!