Start with Guards! Guards! if you want one recommendation. It gives you a city in trouble, a battered police force and a reason to care what happens next. You can meet Terry Pratchett’s world through a story instead of studying a reading chart.
If that doesn’t sound like your kind of evening, choose Mort for Death taking on an apprentice, or Small Gods for a standalone satire about belief and power. Those are three different invitations. You only need to accept one.
Discworld has 41 novels, and the official reading guide explicitly allows readers to begin out of publication order. The number on a bookseller’s listing tells you where a title appeared in the larger collection. It doesn’t necessarily tell you what you must read first.
The three starting points
| What sounds appealing? | Start here | Why this one? |
|---|---|---|
| A city mystery with social satire | Guards! Guards! | The beginning of the City Watch books, with a recurring cast you can follow. |
| An absurd job with unusually large consequences | Mort | A young apprentice goes to work for Death. |
| One novel, without choosing a continuing character series | Small Gods | A standalone story about a god, a believer and religious power. |
These are editorial picks for different tastes, not a ranking of every Discworld novel. If one premise catches your attention, let that outweigh someone else’s declaration of the perfect starting book.
Guards! Guards!: the default choice
Captain Sam Vimes leads the ramshackle Night Watch in Ankh-Morpork, a city facing a dangerous uprising. The official synopsis establishes the appeal: a struggling public institution confronted with a threat it is poorly equipped to handle.
That’s why this is the default here. If you enjoy mysteries, the question of what is happening to a city gives you something familiar to follow while you get used to the fantasy. You don’t have to begin by being interested in wizards.
It is also the first City Watch novel. That matters more to a newcomer than its place as the eighth Discworld novel overall. You are starting a character sequence at its beginning.
Mort: choose the impossible apprenticeship
Death would like to experience more of human life. To make room for that, he hires help: a young man named Mort. The employer is a skeleton with a scythe, but the arrangement includes free board and use of the company horse. That is the setup, not prior knowledge you need to acquire.
Choose this if the peculiar working relationship interests you more than a city’s politics. The contrast between an ordinary first job and an extraordinary boss makes a welcoming premise. The subject is death, so let your appetite for that subject guide you; a comic treatment doesn’t make it everyone’s preferred reading.
Small Gods: choose one self-contained novel
The god Om finds himself in the form of a tortoise. Brutha becomes the person he has to deal with, amid a religious institution entangled with power and corruption. The publisher identifies Small Gods as a standalone.
This is the pick if the commitment itself is putting you off. You can try Pratchett’s treatment of belief, authority and human decency without also choosing a cast to follow across several books.
It isn’t the gentlest subject matter of the three. The official description includes persecution, torture and the threat of religious war. Choose it because that satire interests you, rather than assuming a talking tortoise promises entirely light reading.
Does that mean you should skip The Colour of Magic?
You can, but you don’t have to. The Colour of Magic begins with an inept wizard looking after the world’s first tourist. If that sounds delightful, there’s no need to talk yourself out of it.
The useful distinction is what you want from a first encounter. The official guide describes the early books as fantasy parody and the later work as satire of ordinary life. It also offers publication order as a legitimate way to see the writing develop. Beginning there is a preference, not a mistake.
If you already tried the first book and didn’t get on with it, however, you have permission to try a different premise. Guards! Guards! is the alternative to try for a city story; Small Gods is the alternative for a standalone about belief and power. Neither promises that Pratchett will suddenly become your favorite author.
What to read second—if you want to
After Guards! Guards!, follow the Watch into Men at Arms. After Mort, the next Death book is Reaper Man. After Small Gods, you can stop with a complete standalone, or try one of the other two starting points. The publisher’s reading list by theme and character shows those sequences when you need them.
There are other ways in, including the Witches and Tiffany Aching books. They don’t all need to be weighed before you open your first novel. Following a character sequence is useful once you know you want more of those characters.
For now, borrow or sample the book whose premise appeals most. If you’re still undecided, make it Guards! Guards!—and leave the other 40 out of the decision.
Sources
- Discworld Books Reading Order — Penguin Random House / official Pratchett books site.
- Guards! Guards! — Terry Pratchett official site.
- Guards! Guards! — Penguin Random House / official Pratchett books site.
- Mort — Terry Pratchett official site.
- Small Gods — Penguin Random House / official Pratchett books site.
- Small Gods — Terry Pratchett official site.
- The Colour of Magic — Terry Pratchett official site.
- Discworld reading list by themes/characters — Penguin Random House / official Pratchett books site.
- Discworld — Terry Pratchett official site.