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Terry Pratchett Article: Discworld reading order

Published: Oct 02, 2008 - 08:41 PM :: Print this article

There are well over 30 novels in the Discworld series. This can be a bit daunting for someone who is new to the books, especially because there are multiple character lines intersecting in various books, which makes figuring out the reading order particularly tricky. This is why this article was created, to answer the question "which Discworld book should I read next?"

The Discworld books are not divided in specific series, but there are common characters or themes that help to "bucket" the novels into a couple of categories, where it's possible to define a kind of a chronology.

First we have the Rincewind category, that starts the whole series with "The Color of Magic".

Rincewind Category

- The Colour of Magic
- The Light Fantastic
- Sourcery
- Interesting Times
- The Last Continent
- The Last Hero

Then we have the Death Category, where the main plot is connected in one way or another to the Death character.

Death Category

- Mort
- Reaper Man
- Soul Music
- Hogfather
- Thief of Time

Another theme linking a number of Discworld books are the Witches with Granny Weatherwax making first appearance in Equal Rites.


Witches Category

- Equal Rites
- Wyrd Sisters
- Witches Abroad
- Lords and Ladies
- Maskerade
- Carpe Jugulum

One of my favorite Discworld themes beins quite deep into the series and probably because of this it's a bit more mature than the rest of the books. It's the Ankh Morpork City Watch Category starting with "Guards! Guards!" novel.

Ankh Morpork City Watch Category

- Guards! Guards!
- Men at Arms
- Feet of Clay
- Jingo
- The Fifth Elephant
- Night Watch
- Thud!

The remaining books are not specifically linked by one theme or one plot line or character. While two of them (Going Postal and Making Money) have the same leading character the whole group can only be described as General Social and Civilization study. Pratchett takes on the difficult topics of religion, war and general social interactions to name a few.


Social Study Category

- Pyramids
- Small Gods
- Moving Pictures
- The Truth
- Monstrous Regiment
- Going Postal
- Making Money


There are two more separate lines of books that I didn't want to pile in together with the "main" Discworld novels. Those are the Young Adults books and the opposite, the Science of Discworld.


Young Adults

- The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
- The Wee Free Men
- A Hat Full of Sky
- Winter-smith


The Science of Discworld

- The Science of Discworld
- The Science of Discworld II - The Globe
- The Science of Discworld III - Darwin's Watch

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