Discworld Reading Order?

 

 

So, if I’m ready to try a Discworld novel, where do I start? 

 

http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/the-discworld-reading-order-guide-20.jpg

 

 

 

 

Matt Welch on "fear of extremism and mob violence"

 

 

 

http://reason.com/blog/2011/10/04/hooray-for-fear-of-extremism-a

 

 

 

npr Top 100 Sceince-Fcition, Fantasy Books--how many have you read?

npr Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books

I didn't really follow this, and thus didn't vote on anything.  I did look at the results, and thought I would at least figure out which ones I had read.  Their rules on series is a little odd, and so there's cases where I had read one or two of a group.

For the listing below, those in red are ones that I've read, those in blue are series where I've read some, while those in black are unread.

 

1	The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy	J.R.R. Tolkien
2	The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy	Douglas Adams
3	Ender's Game	Orson Scott Card
4	The Dune Chronicles	Frank Herbert
5	A Song Of Ice And Fire Series	George R. R. Martin
6	1984	George Orwell
7	Fahrenheit 451	Ray Bradbury
8	The Foundation Trilogy	Isaac Asimov
9	Brave New World	Aldous Huxle
10	American Gods	Neil Gaiman
11	The Princess Bride	William Goldman
12	The Wheel Of Time Series	Robert Jordan
13	Animal Farm	George Orwell
14	Neuromancer	William Gibson
15	Watchmen	Alan Moore
16	I, Robot	Isaac Asimov
17	Stranger In A Strange Land	Robert Heinlein
18	The Kingkiller Chronicles	Patrick Rothfuss
19	Slaughterhouse-Five	Kurt Vonnegut
20	Frankenstein	Mary Shelley
21	Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?	Philip K. Dick
22	The Handmaid's Tale	Margaret Atwood
23	The Dark Tower Series	Stephen King
24	2001: A Space Odyssey	Arthur C. Clarke
25	The Stand	Stephen King
26	Snow Crash	Neal Stephenson
27	The Martian Chronicles	Ray Bradbury
28	Cat's Cradle	Kurt Vonnegut
29	The Sandman Series	Neil Gaiman
30	A Clockwork Orange	Anthony Burgess
31	Starship Troopers	Robert Heinlein
32	Watership Down	Richard Adams
33	Dragonflight	Anne McCaffre
34	The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress	Robert Heinlein
35	A Canticle For Leibowitz	Walter M. Miller
36	The Time Machine	H.G. Wells
37	20000 Leagues Under the Sea	Jules Verne
38	Flowers For Algernon	Daniel Keys Moran
39	The War Of The Worlds	H.G. Wells
40	The Chronicles Of Amber	Roger Zelaznz
41	The Belgariad	David Eddings
42	The Mists Of Avalon	Marion Zimmer Bradley
43	The Mistborn Series	Brandon Sanderson
44	Ringworld	Larry Niven
45	The Left Hand Of Darkness	Ursula K. LeGuin
46	The Silmarillion	J.R.R. Tolkien
47	The Once And Future King	T.H. White
48	Neverwhere	Neil Gaiman
49	Childhood's End	Arthur C. Clarke
50	Contact	Carl Sagan
51	The Hyperion Cantos	Dan Simmons
52	Stardust	Neil Gaiman
53	Cryptonomicon	Neal Stephenson
54	World War Z	Max Brooks
55	The Last Unicorn	Peter S. Beagle
56	The Forever War	Joe Haldeman
57	Small Gods	Terry Pratchett
58	The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant	Stephen R. Donaldson
59	The Vorkosigan Saga	Lois McMaster Bujold
60	Going Postal	Terry Pratchett
61	The Mote In God's Eye	Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62	The Sword Of Truth	Terry Goodkind
63	The Road	Cormac McCarthy
64	Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell	Susanna Clarke
65	I Am Legend	Richard Matheson
66	The Riftwar Saga	Raymond E. Feist
67	The Shannara Trilogy	Terry  Brooks
68	The Conan The Barbarian Series	R.E. Howard
69	The Farseer Trilogy	Robin Hobb
70	The Time Traveler's Wife	Audrey Niffenegger
71	The Way Of Kings	Brandon Sanderson
72	A Journey To The Center Of The Earth	Jules Verne
73	The Legend Of Drizzt Series	R.A. Salvatore
74	Old Man's War	John Scalzi
75	The Diamond Age	Neil Stephenson
76	Rendezvous With Rama	Arthur C. Clarke
77	The Kushiel's Legacy Series	Jacqueline Carey
78	The Dispossessed	Ursula K. LeGuin
79	Something Wicked This Way Comes	Ray Bradbury
80	Wicked	Gregory Maguire
81	The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series	Steven Erikson
82	The Eyre Affair	Jasper Fforde
83	The Culture Series	Iain M. Banks
84	The Crystal Cave	Mary Stewart
85	Anathem	Neal Stephenson
86	The Codex Alera Series	Jim Butcher
87	The Book Of The New Sun	Gene Wolfe
88	The Thrawn Trilogy	Timothy Zahn
89	The Outlander Series	Diana Gabaldan
90	The Elric Saga	Michael Moorcock
91	The Illustrated Man	Ray Bradbury
92	Sunshine	Robin McKinlez
93	A Fire Upon The Deep	Vernor Vinge
94	The Caves Of Steel	Isaac Asimov
95	The Mars Trilogy	Kim Stanley Robinson
96	Lucifer's Hammer	Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
97	Doomsday Book	Connie Willis
98	Perdido Street Station	China Mieville
99	The Xanth Series	Piers Anthony
100	The Space Trilogy	C.S. Lewis

Some general notes/comments:

"The Thrawn Triolgy" by Timothy Zahn?  A nice addition to Lucas' Star Wars universe (and one of the last things I paid attention to, particulary after the disappointing prequels) but they aren't great literature.

Sigh...outside of the first couple, why include Anthony's Xanth series?

Is Robin McKinley's "Sunshine" held in that high of regard?

Wow, lot more Neil Gaiman books on the list than I would have expected.

After a tasty dinner, getting ready to see Delbert Mcclinton at the Crighton in Conroe...last Sounds of Texas show for the season

Vernon's Kunty Katfish in Conroe...good eating...

Preview for another Mission Impossible movie...why does Brad Bird feel he needs to direct an entry in an exisiting action series...

Fun but tiring weekend in Memphis. Back home, and ready for Tex-Mex at Gringo's

At wife's 40th High School reunion....sometimes it's fun being a 5th wheel...

Ok...now i can say that Graceland is tacky...

Correction...the Elvis museum complex is tacky...not seen Graceland yet...

Graceland is very tacky...

Recently read: "Long Eyes and Other Stories" by Jeff Carlson

This was my first introduction to Carlson.  There's three stories here:

"Long Eyes" a story about a human/spaceship hybrid, and what makes someone human.

"Planet of the Sealies" about future archaeology, and the skills necessary for survival of the species

"Pressure" about a human/sea creature hybrid.

I've said before that I don't read a lot of short fiction, and I know that it's my loss, since so much interesting work (and new authors) first show up in the shorter length.  I assume Carlson is more know for his Plague novels (Plague Year, Plague War and Plague Zone).  Based upon these shorter works, I may have to try Plague Year.

I've also heard good things about The Frozen Sky, so I should try that.

Recently read: "Moon Flower" by James P. Hogan

I really didn't want to read this.  I first read Hogan in high school, starting with Thrice Upon A Time.  That book, along with Inherit the Stars help cement my interest in SF.  I followed Hogan for a long time, until he starting going off the rails (my last book of his was Cradle of Saturn, which I knew was bad, but read just to see how bad it could be).

One of my book groups picked this one to read (I think partially because Hogan died last year, and this one was in print and easily found) so I read it to see how bad it was.

Ugh...Earth is a mess, being dominated by massive corporations (ok, nothing new here) and "developing" new worlds (there's a FTL drive which allows us out of the solar system).  On the planet Cyrene, Terrans from the base are disappearing.  Myles Callen, a facilitator for the Interworld Restructuring Corporation is sent to find out what is going on, and to find physicist Evan Wade, one of the humans that has left the base.

Marc Shearer, an idealistic physicist who was a colleague of Wade's, is given the chance to go to Cyrene (the corporation hopes Shearer will lead Callen to Wade).  Once there, Shearer finds that Wade has laid the groundwork for him to follow, with help from the Cyreneans.

Once on the planet, most humans find themselves becoming more like the Cyreneans, less interested in being selfish, and more about "doing the right thing".

****Spoilers****
I guess this is a spoiler, though the once you start the book the title gives a bit of it away, but there's a flower on Cyrene which somehow (handwaves quantum physics) allows some communication backward in time.  This allows people to make the "correct" decisions.  (This occurs on Earth, but is too faint for anyone to recognize.  Shearer has been doing research into this.  The flower acts as a sort of antenna for the waves).

One of my biggest problems with this story is that, given that humans are screwing up the planet, the solution is through a "magical flower".  It's very depressing.

Well, that's one problem  The book is also badly written, with most of the characters being bland, despite some background information.  There's also bad science (including a bit of Velikovsky, which really serves no purpose in the plot) including some wonky orbital dynamics of the Cyrene system.

***Spoilers over***

Hogan isn't the first author to lose his way as he got older, but really stands a an excellent example of such.  I saw him a few years ago at an ArmadilloCon, and got him to autograph a couple of books.  He asked "why none of the new books..." which I was able to laugh off (I really didn't want to go into that with him at an autograph table).