I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a fracking idiot. For the longest time I thought Terry Pratchett wrote kids books. About magic. And, frankly, I got my fill of magic from Harry, thank you very much. I’m glad she got rich, but I never had fun along the way.

Anyhow, after not being able to find the books in dead tree format (because I am cheap and only shop at Recycled Reads), I was happy to see that the Austin Public Library had eBooks for borrowing. And, after many many moons, I got a Kindle Touch (then a Paperwhite). No, I wasn’t behind the curve. Back in the day I had one of those Sony eReaders — and you had to use one of those computer things to get books on it.

Anyhow, the APL was kind enough to get all of the Discworld books, so I could dip my toes for no cost. Hurray!

I started with the Watch series, because I’m still not much of a magic man. This series, quite a long one, follows the Night Watch (think: neglected cops) and their interaction with wizards, trolls, and whatnot.

What fun! Fantasy books that don’t have He Men slaying Dragons. Okay, I’m being unfair, I never read any fantasy, because that was my impression of the genre. I’m shallow. Who cares.

Okay, back to Pratchett: Fun to read. Very well written. Full of tongue-in-cheek. A master as description and language. And he knows how to write a good plot that doesn’t re-hash the same thing over and over (I’m talking to you, Harry).

If you are a detective/thriller guy like me, start with the Watch series. The Death ones are good, too. And the Industrial Revolution–“The Truth” is great. I’ve just started on the Witches series, which I’m a little less happy with, but I give them time. The easiest way to get the reading order is to download “The Discworld Reading Order” PDF from wiki.