Reaper Man
by Terry Pratchett (Gollancz, 1991); audiobook read by Nigel Planer (Transworld, 1995)
Having given Death a personality, Pratchett next postulated the consequences of him having to die. Since this was still quite early in the Discworld saga, the result is mostly comedic mayhem (although Death’s relationship with Miss Flitworth is both sweet and philosophical).
Unseen Academicals
by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 2009); audiobook read by Stephen Briggs (ISIS, 2009)
Pratchett brings together the wizards and staff of Unseen University and the traditionally violent Ankh-Morporkian game of foot-the-ball to explore notions of tradition and expectation. Glenda Sugarbean and Mr Nutt make for intriguing, rather serious, one-off characters, balancing out the madcap romp.
Making Money
by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 2007); audiobook read by Stephen Briggs (HarperAudio, 2007)
Pratchett, in the midst of a sequence of novels aimed as much at modernising the Discworld as making merry, pits former confidence man Moist von Lipwig against Ankh-Morpork’s banking sector. The telling is droll but by Pratchett’s standards the story is uninspiring.
Feet of Clay
by Terry Pratchett (Victor Gollancz, 1996); audiobook read by Nigel Planer (ISIS, 1999)
Feet of Clay continues the examination of racism (on the Discworld, species-ism) begun in Men at Arms, adding little except welcome reiteration. Although the golems make for interesting characters, Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs—two of Pratchett’s less explicably favoured creations—don’t.
Mort
by Terry Pratchett (Victor Gollancz, 1987); audiobook read by Nigel Planer (Isis, 1995)
Mort is the book with which Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series turned from imaginative curiosity to comedic fantasy par excellence. The plot is atypically focussed for Pratchett, and Death (who in a mid-life crisis takes on an apprentice) becomes an instant fan favourite.
Night Watch
by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 2002); audiobook read by Stephen Briggs (Isis, 2002)
Night Watch is one of Pratchett’s least funny Discworld novels, in the best possible way. The gallows humour remains but the story — a poignant time travel paradox that sees Sam Vimes mentor his younger self through a bloody revolution — is more focussed.
Hogfather
by Terry Pratchett (Gollancz, 1996); audiobook read by Nigel Planer (Isis, 1999)
Pratchett might belabour the point, yet his stark critique of Christmas is so lavishly adorned that the humour tends to dominate. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a black comedy, it is Death (no less) and his granddaughter who bring the magic back to Hogswatchnight.
I Shall Wear Midnight
by Terry Pratchett (Doubleday, 2010); audiobook read by Stephen Briggs (Isis, 2010)
Though not among the funniest of the Discworld novels, I Shall Wear Midnight nevertheless upholds Pratchett’s near-ubiquitous drollery, rustling from within a serious treatise on intolerance and antagonism and other such weak points of human nature. Stephen Briggs proves a volant narrator.
Pyramids
by Terry Pratchett (Corgi, 1989); audiobook read by Nigel Planer (Isis, 2002)
Pratchett’s Discworld series truly hit its stride in this, the BSFA-winning seventh book. Pyramids is a self-contained and ingeniously conceived, desert-dry satire on the type of human thinking that underpins religious folly. Nigel Planer is suitably droll in voicing the befuddled participants.
Guards! Guards!
by Terry Pratchett; read by Nigel Planer (Isis, 1995)
[first published by Gollancz, 1989]
Some of the dialogue feels slightly laboured when read aloud (a small misgiving), but in the grand scale of all things magical and satirical this is the perfect introduction to Pratchett’s Discworld series. Planer handles with aplomb both narrative comedy and characterisation.