The Light Fantastic

Terry Pratchett has written a classic tale of heroes on a quest to save the world. Just kidding! Its Terry Pratchett and Discworld and there is nothing traditional about any of it. The pace is mad cap, the language is full of puns, the heroes are unlikely, the settings and sidekicks are even more unlikely, and the fun is nonstop. It should be impossible to write such pure nonsense that ends up making great sense. Once again, Terry Pratchett demonstrates how he is the master of a fantasy sub-genre that probably belongs to him alone. Clever, witty, rapid-fire. The Discworld novels fall into different categories: Tiffany Aching, Rincewind, the three witches, Sam Vines and the guards, and Death. This book is a novel of Rincewind. Each book focuses on one of them, although they cross over and pop up in each others’ books all the time. It is best if you start from the beginning of a grouping and work your way through, otherwise you’ll miss a lot of inside jokes, references, etc. There are charts on the internet that will show you the groupings. Having said that, I read Wee Free Men first, and it made me a fan. You can trust Terry Pratchett to not be too linear and to not be very predictable. Terry Pratchett does a wonderful job of maintaining the integrity of his absurd world and his characters while keeping everything fresh and creative. The humor is wrapped around serious themes. The characters have fantasy aspects, but they illustrate many universal truths of human nature. I cannot read too many of them in a row, but when I need something different, a Discworld novel is the perfect metaphorical palate refresher. Life on Discworld is threatened and extraordinary efforts by an eccentric unmatched team is required to restore balance. Rincewind is an extraordinarily inept wizard whose greatest talent is saving his own skin. He is assisted by the traveler Twoflower, the Luggage, Cohen the Barbarian, Bethan the Sacrificial Virgin, and others along the way. Like all the Discworld books, the tone is satirical and clever. This book did not make me laugh aloud as frequently as Wee Free Men, but it had its moments. Had to love the throw-away line about the luters! These books do not contain any scenes, language, or images that would rate even a PG-13 rating at the movies. If a reader does not have sufficient maturity, much of the book will be wasted, because you wont get the jokes or understand the satire. I count myself lucky to still have so many novels of Discworld ahead of me.

Well. Down the rabbit hole and into a maze of twisty little passages. Book 1 (The Colour of Magic) (spoiler alert) ended with Rincewind and Twoflower tumbling off the edge of the disk into space, toward the shell of the Great A’Tuin. In book 2, (The Light Fantastic), Rincewind and Twoflower eventually land…back on the disk. This is never explained in more than a “wibbly wobbly timey wimey” way. But there’s a new and sinister-looking red star in the sky. The wizards at Unseen University fear this new portent, especially as it seems to upset the Octavo. They believe they need to get Rincewind back as soon as possible to reunite all eight of the original Creator’s spells–one of which is lodged in Rincewind’s head due to a prank he pulled in his student days at the university. Rincewind would like nothing more than to oblige, but between being lost and waylaid, it looks like the red star, which keeps getting closer and closer, will arrive before Rincewind does. The ending is, in my opinion, not suitable for young children. People turn into scary monsters, people die–it ends well, of course, but that climactic scene is not exactly suitable bedtime reading. But it’s a super tale. Will Rincewind arrive in time? Will Twoflower unwittingly save the day, or be lost in the fray? And what of the luggage? Will it ever be seen again? Read the book.

The Light Fantastic does a great job of finishing what Pratchett began in The Color of Magic. Like that book, this one is mostly episodic, meaning that the main characters arrive in a new locale, get into trouble, resolve the situation (or watch as someone else resolves it), and move on to the next location.

One of the things that I appreciate most about Pratchetts writing is that its rigorously streamlined. Like Chekhov, he avoids excessive detail, giving us just the important bits. So, if he shows you a gun (or a book or a piece of luggage) in the first act, you can bet that its going to play an important role before the story is through. The book is like a series of satisfying payoffs.

And despite Pratchetts passion for puns and dad jokes, The Light Fantastic shows that hes not afraid to set aside the yuks now and then to speak more directlyand pithilyto the reader. His satire offers plenty of commentary on contemporary civilization, but his straightforward critiques are just as on-point.

That said, the plot of The Light Fantasticparticularly in the first half of the bookfelt a little random to me. That might be my fault, since I had to put this book aside a couple of times to focus on other things, but generally, I think that the jumps from one episode to the next were explained better in The Color of Magic.

Then again, its fantasy, and ridiculous fantasy at that. Maybe Pratchett doesnt have to provide the characters with powerful motivations at every turn.

Whatever the case, the bottom line is: I loved reading the book, and I look forward to picking up the next 38 (!!!) in the series.

This is more like it! The Light Fantastic is the sequel to The Color of Magic, Terry Pratchetts first Discworld novel. I read this entire series several decades ago, and now Im rereading them. The first book (though good) had some structural problems, but the sequel is much more like the Pratchett I remember. Lively dialogue, interesting characters and a good story, and of course, very funny. This isnt Pratchetts best work (the magic isn’t quite there yet), but it shows that hes finding his feet within the world he created.

The late Sir Terry Pratchett had a brilliant sense of humour; he was extremely well read which clearly shows through his writing; excellent at one liners that catch you out causing real laugh out loud belly laughter; the ability to understand politics, social science, the “establishment” and many complex religious and historical theories and roll them into his books ‘tongue in cheek’ but never disrespectful. Where else could you read the plot of Macbeth with witches interwoven with dwarfs, trolls, eccentric academics and a rag rag mixture of a police force who include vampires, trolls, dwarfs, werewolves and a person assumed to be human called Nobby Nobs who is tentatively like Baldrick from the TV series “BlackAdder?”
The majority of his characters were named after fans that he knew in RL. Each character with their individuality draws you in, makes you want to get to know them better and then makes it impossible for you to choose a favorite as you will love them all!
All I can say is “Welcome to Discworld!” An imaginary disc, propped up by large elephants swimming through space on the back of a giant turtle. Once you read a couple of pages you are hooked. You are compelled to read the vast amount of Discworld books and then read them again, and again, and again!
STP was taken by a form of dementia and passed away far too early and in his prime. It is certainly our loss but he lives through his wonderful Discworld characters – too many to mention and through his clever ingenious plots who I guarantee you will howl with laughter at.
God bless you STP ! You certainly brightened up my life through Discworld. I just wish I could have met you !
Enjoy reader! Enjoy!

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