Bestselling British author Terry Pratchett has legendary status amongst fantasy fiction fans from all over the globe. His Discworld series of about 40 books is arguably one of the best and longest fantasy series in the world. Although Terry Pratchett sadly passed away in 2015, his books remain just as popular now as it was during their heyday.
The Colour of Magic is the first book from the Discworld series and it is the book that started the craze over this fantastic fantasy series.
First published in 1983, The Colour of Magic is a comical adventure in an alternate world known as the Discworld. The book has everything a fantasy fan can hope for, from wizards to barbarians, dryads, dragons, aliens, the angel of death and a whole lot more.
Now when I first came across The Colour of Magic, I was a bit hesitant to read. I found the description of Discworld odd with a planet shaped like a disc that is being balanced by four elephants who in turn are on a giant turtle with eyes as big as a continent. The turtle, called A’Tuin is slowly travelling through the galaxy and affects things on Discworld.
If you found that description ‘weird’, the premise of The Colour of Magic can be even weirder. Twoflower, a being with four eyes from one of the continents in Discworld decides to travel all the way to another continent, to a place called Ankh Morpork as a tourist. Even though Ankh Morpork is filled with thieves, ruffians and other thugs, this is where Twoflower decides is where all the action is and he wants to meet the city-state’s famous residents and have an adventure of his own. Obviously things are not easy for him considering he does not speak the local language and tourism as a concept is unheard of at Ankh-Morpork. What does work in his favour is that the currency that he carries is as good as gold to the locals at Ankh-Morpork attracting all kinds of people trying to take advantage of Twoflower.
This is where the main protagonist of the story comes in. Rincewind, a failed wizard who does not know any real spells offers to act as Twoflower’s guide in the city in return of being paid for his services. Even Rincewind does not really have any talents or has no real intention of showing Twoflower around. However, since he has the ability to speak in Twoflower’s language, he is the only one who can communicate with the tourist.
Now if you have read all of the above and are undecided whether you would like to read the book so far, let me tell you The Colour of Magic is one of the best, most humorous and superb fantasy adventures ever written. For supernatural fantasy adventure fans, it is no-brainer to pick up the book as soon as you can.
The dynamics between the two main characters of the book – Rincewind and Twoflower is simply awesome and hilarious at times. Rincewind is the more intelligent of the two while Twoflower is an innocent being that takes everyone at face value.
Together the crazy adventure they end up on is an engaging read and is quite hard to put down till the end.
In fact I mentioned earlier I found the premise of the book and description of Discworld ‘weird.’ After reading the whole book, it ended up being such an intelligent read and everything made so much sense.
While I personally did not find much negative in the book, there was something that kind of bothered me. Now I am trying to say this without any spoilers but the book has a kind of a cliff-hanger ending and I am one of those guys who prefers proper closures rather than open to interpretation type endings.
However, I soon learned that there is a follow up book to The Colour of Magic called The Light Fantastic. The second book takes the story to a proper conclusion. The Colour of Magic on its own is a fantastic read but I would really recommend reading both books one after the other to truly enjoy the whole story.
Overall, I give The Colour of Magic 4.5 out of 5 stars and till date, it remains one of my absolute favourites in the fantasy adventures genre.
