Support the siteSupport

Discworld

Forty-one novels in six parallel sub-series, which is why starting at book one is the usual mistake.

0%
complete

Where to start with Discworld

The four steps below are alternatives, not a sequence. Discworld has no book one worth starting at, and the standard advice from booksellers, the estate's own charts and most readers is to pick a thread that sounds like you and read forward from its first book. Each of these opens a different thread and none of them assumes you have read anything else.

  1. 1
    Guards! Guards! (1989), first of the City Watch Guards! Guards!

    The most common answer to this question. A city, a police force nobody wants, a dragon, and a fully formed writer. Eight books follow it and they get better.

  2. 2
    Mort (1987), first of the Death books Mort

    The earliest book where the series sounds like itself, and short. Death takes an apprentice; the joke and the feeling arrive at the same time.

  3. 3
    The Wee Free Men (2003), first of Tiffany Aching The Wee Free Men

    Written for younger readers and routinely the one adults recommend to other adults. Five books, one continuous arc, and it ends the whole series.

  4. 4
    Small Gods (1992), a standalone Small Gods

    Connected to nothing, needs nothing, and is the book most often named the best. If you want to find out whether Pratchett is for you in one sitting, it is this.

Then what? Whichever you pick, read that thread forward, then start another. The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic are worth coming back to once you like the place, and are a poor introduction to it. The Sky films work best after the books they adapt. The Watch does not work as an introduction to anything.

A suggested way in, not an official one. The full list is below — tick anything off in either place.

0titles watched
0episodes checked
0left to watch
up next

Sync & backup

Your progress is saved on this device automatically. To carry it to another device, move the code below.

The code holds only this franchise. The link opens the tracker with your progress already filled in — good for showing someone where you're at. The image is a picture you can keep anywhere: scan the code on it with a phone, or drag the file back in below.

Drag a SagaList image here, or .

This reads the progress stored inside the picture, so nothing has to be retyped. If the image has been through a messaging app it may have been re-encoded and lost that — scan the code on it instead, or copy the code printed along the bottom.

Restoring replaces the progress currently saved on this device for the franchise the code belongs to.

Read only. This never changes what you have saved, and nothing leaves your browser. The code has to be their code for this same franchise: codes do not carry a name, so one from somewhere else may not be recognised as wrong.