The Colour of Magic Author:Terry Pratchett The Colour of Magic — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia — Jump to: navigation, search — This article is about the book. For the TV film, see The Colour of Magic (TV film) . — Terry Pratchett — The Discworld series — 1st novel ? 1st Rincewind story — Outline — Characters Rincewind — Twoflower — The Luggage — Locations Ankh-Morpork — Krull — Motifs Fantasy... more » clich?s, Role-playing games
Publication details
Year of release 1983
Original publisher Colin Smythe
Hardback ISBN ISBN 0-86140-324-X
Paperback ISBN ISBN 0-552-12475-3
Other details
Notes 93rd in the Big Read
The Colour of Magic is a 1983 comic fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett, and is the first book of the Discworld series.
Contents [hide]
1 Plot summary
2 Structure
3 Adaptations
3.1 Graphic novel
3.2 TV adaptation
3.3 Computer game
4 References
5 External links
[edit] Plot summary
The main character is an incompetent and cynical wizard named Rincewind. He involuntarily becomes a guide to the naive tourist, Twoflower. Forced to flee the city of Ankh-Morpork to escape a terrible fire, they begin on a journey across the Disc. Unbeknownst to them, their journey is controlled by the Gods playing a board game.
They visit Wyrmberg, an upside-down mountain which is home to dragons that only exist in the imagination. The names of the dragons' riders feature punctuation in the middle, making reference and parody of the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffery. They nearly go over the waterfall on the edge of the Disc, only to be rescued and taken to the country of Krull, a city perched on the very edge of the Discworld by a hydrophobic wizard. The Krullians wish to discover the gender of Great A'Tuin, the giant turtle which carries the Discworld through space, so they have built a space capsule to launch over the edge. They intend on sacrificing Rincewind and Twoflower to get Fate to smile on the voyage. Instead, Rincewind and Twoflower hijack the capsule in an attempt to escape and are launched off the Disc themselves.
The story is continued in the succeeding Discworld novel, The Light Fantastic.
[edit] Structure
The Colour of Magic is one of only eight Discworld novels to be divided into sections or chapters, the others being Pyramids, Going Postal, Making Money, and the four books for younger readers, specifically The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents and the three Tiffany Aching books, The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith.« less