![]() ![]() ![]() When we first met Vimes, in 1991's Guards! Guards!, he was the drink-sozzled leader of a handful of hapless coppers, ignored by criminals and held in universal contempt by the citizenry. The latest book in the series is the seventh to focus on my own favourite character, Sam Vimes, commander of the Ankh-Morpork city watch. For this, you want to start where the characters do. One of the pleasures the books offer is watching for recurring characters, and seeing them develop. ![]() Pratchett followers have lengthy and inconclusive debates over the best entry point into the series - though most agree it isn't the earliest books. Each book stands alone, and strictly speaking you can tackle them in any order. The Discworld books began as fantasy satires, but quickly developed into something richer and more interesting, a blend of broad-spectrum social satire, adventure and straight-up comedy. I'll go out on a limb, in fact, and make a prediction: of the authors who currently release bestselling books once or more a year, only Pratchett will still be being read in 50 years. But it has a smaller population of first-rate writers, and few names belong on both lists. In itself there's nothing notable about that. This man writes faster than the Earth moves round the sun. I'm in my late 30s now, and there's nearly a Discworld book for every year of my age. I was in my late teens when he began writing Discworld novels. Terry Pratchett started way behind, but he's gaining on me. ![]()
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