The Colour of Magic is the first book in the Discworld series, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it. The book is structured as a collection of four loosely connected novellas following the adventures of the inept wizard Rincewind and the tourist Twoflower. Despite having read it numerous times, I still found myself laughing out loud at its silliness.
The first section is set in Ankh-Morpork, framed by Rincewind’s watching the city burn to the ground with two thieves, explaining how it came to this.
The second part introduces a game between the gods of Discworld, with the people as their pawns. Fate and the Lady face off as the characters encounter Hrun the Barbarian at the temple of Bel-Shamharoth.
The third section takes place at the Wyrmburg, an inverted mountain inhabited by warriors who ride imaginary dragons. This part ends with a surreal episode where the characters cross into our universe, finding themselves aboard a plane during a terrorist incident.
The final section brings the characters to the edge of the Disc, where they are captured and prepared for sacrifice in the kingdom of Krull. Fate and the Lady reappear, and the book concludes with Rincewind plummeting into the infinity of space.
The first section in Ankh-Morpork is by far the best, and it’s telling that the city becomes such a central part to the series where a lot of the other characters and places never return.