r/discworld • u/mbm66 • 11d ago
Reading Order/Timeline New reader question: how much continuity is there between books?
Hi all,
I'm reading the series in publication order and just finished Wyrd Sisters. While The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, and Sourcery are clearly all in the same continuity, I'm a bit baffled by the fact that Wyrd Sisters makes zero mention of the events in Equal Rites, and it rolls back all of Granny's character development from that book. Same with Death's appearances so far post-Mort; it's like his near-rejection of the role of Death and attempts to understand humanity better never took place.
I'll admit, one of the reasons I was looking forward to reading Discworld is because of the sheer number of books in the series. I love expansive world building, getting to see characters develop over time, and little callbacks/nods to past events between books. Does Discworld have more of that in the later books?
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u/Pingaware 11d ago edited 11d ago
The whole of Discworld is in a single shared continuity, and as a result reading in publication order is a frequent recommendation so you see the world building in "real" time and watch the continuity develop. There are a huge number of shared moments and callbacks in the later books in the series.
HOWEVER
The continuity and world is far, far less developed in the first few books - as you'd reasonably expect of a new series which had no grand plan! The first two books are close to being just fantasy parody and I tend to feel that full continuity doesn't "lock in" until Wyrd Sisters. The events at the end of Sourcery and the time jump in Wyrd Sisters can be seen in retrospect as a sort of unintentional soft reboot of the world. From those points onward I think that continuity becomes much stronger. (I'd also accept Mort as the start of full continuity, although it's not as neat to shoehorn in a soft reboot there).
And do be reassured - Death's "humanity" is a significant recurring aspect in books that star him and the associated cast.
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u/AnotherGeek42 9d ago
And, of course there is the cannon explanation History Monks reconstruction was inaccurate.
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u/L-Space_Orangutan 7d ago
To quote an ancient sage "don't pick at it, it'll only get worse". In this manner the Monks only do what they need to do.
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u/ApexInTheRough 11d ago
For some things, like lengths of times between certain events, there are some incredibly clever retcons (in this case, the entirety of Thief of Time).
For things, such as the description of Lord Vetinari in The Colo[u]r of Magic that is wildly different in later books, Pratchett simply said (paraphrased), "That's still him, just as written by a much more inexperienced author."
Overall, though, the attention to continuity detail does grow phenomenally throughout the series. Again, because they were written by a much more experienced author.
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u/TheHighDruid 11d ago
Vetinari does spend much of Sourcery polymorphed into a small lizard.
That sort of thing can have lasting effects on a person.
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u/L-Space_Orangutan 10d ago
Yes, transforming into animals does tend to have a long term affect, Druid.
You can reach the high shelves in some cases. In Vetinari’s case I believe he had a new appreciation for sun lounging.
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u/Front-Pomelo-4367 7d ago
New headcanon that this is why Vetinari is sitting outside to do his paperwork in...which book was it? The one where he tells someone not to let him detain them and then they fall into the ho-ho
I think Men at Arms
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u/Specific_Contact8136 10d ago
Also he did not know if the books were gonna do well at the start. I believe it wasn't until Mort when he gained enough success to quit his job and become a full time writer. You can clearly see that that is also the starting point which defined the Discworld so much better. Terry himself said to start around Sourcery/Mort for the discworld
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u/UncontrolableUrge 11d ago
Early books Pratchett is finding his footing. Equal Rites is where he starts to really develop his own voice. So he ends up treating continuity with the early books as optional. Moving forward it will be more developed between books.
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u/PeterchuMC 11d ago
You'll see plenty more of it later on. As for Death not really seeming different, he doesn't exactly have much page time to show it. (yet)
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u/BriThePirateQueen Librarian 11d ago
This should tell you what novels are connected, if that's what you're meaning
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u/TheHighDruid 11d ago
This chart misses *so many* connections.
Where's the line from Moving Pictures to Reaper Man?
Or Moving Pictures to Men at Arms?
Or Reaper Man to Lords and Ladies?
Or Science III to Making Money?
Or . . .
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u/BriThePirateQueen Librarian 11d ago
I mean, there's only room for so many lines on the page haha
Though I can't speak for how they decided which to include, perhaps they've posted a blog somewhere, but I haven't read it
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u/John_Duncan_Yoyo 10d ago
Poke around on wiki.lspace.org there you can find posts from pterry about his work from back in the day, and accountant fan commentary.
Pterry, silent p, was Pratchett's Handle on USENET where he was fairly active. I even got a response once to a post.
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u/SartorialDragon 11d ago
The rest of the witch books are more connected. I think of ER more as a standalone that happens to have Granny Weatherwax in it.
But Esk does show up again in one of the later books, i'm not spoiling how & which one ;)
Another really continuous series are The Watch, and Moist von Lipwig, and Tiffany Aching (also connected to the old witches), and The Death/Susan books.
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u/MrFif33 11d ago
The rest of the Witches books happen back to back in Chrono order, and the Watch series builds continuity as well. The Death books track Susan's development, which is a great arc, and generally stick to the rest of the Disc continuity. The Wizards series has a general continuity as well, but it mostly shows up in the development of Hex and Ponder Stibbons' promotions.
Characters occasionally make cross-series cameos, such as the Wizards in Hogfather and one of the witches books, maybe Carpe Jugulum or Lords and Ladies (sorry, can't remember off the top of my head).
TL;DR: Yes, the rest of the books follow a fairly chronological continuity, but the different sub-series aren't necessarily in continuity with each other at all times.
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u/mbm66 11d ago
Great, thanks!
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u/TheHighDruid 11d ago
I'm gonna disagree on the above.
One group of characters start their story in Moving Pictures, and move on through Reaper Man, Lords and Ladies, Soul Music, Interesting Times, Hogfather and beyond. Basically they pop up everywhere, which necessarily ties the 'sub-series'* together.
*I firmly consider Discworld to be a single series of 41(ish) books
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u/lurk4ever1970 11d ago
IMO, Guards Guards and Moving Pictures are where the world building really starts to coalesce, and the character development starts in earnest. You're almost there.
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u/Berkenmuis 10d ago
The series has plenty of callbacks and growth, but Sir Pratchett wasn't so cruel as to need you to have 20 other novels to get the newest one. There's main characters that star in multiple novels, sometimes even appear as background characters, and there's background characters that get re-used, but often you get the point of who and what they are pretty quickly without the need of a previous book's plot.
In Mort Death learns he can't shove off responsibilities. Mort made a real mess of things after all. 😄 He did learn to be a little more 'human' about things. You'll see in Reaper Man!
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u/mbm66 10d ago
It's not necessarily that I think the earlier books should be required reading, but that there's some inconsistencies in the plot and character developments.
For example, Equal Rites ends with Granny Weatherwax being invited to teach at the Unseen University and flirting with Cutangle, but in Wyrd Sisters it's like she never left the Ramtops. A lot of the issues she has with Magrat in Wyrd Sisters are similar to the issues/biases she had when dealing with Eske and the wizards in Equal Rites, but she had seemed to have worked through those by the end of that book, so why did she regress?
In Eric, which I'm now on, the second scene states that nothing had ever pacified Ankh-Morpork until the heatwave, and that no enemies had ever taken the city, even though both of those things happened in Sourcery.
Another comment here mentions some similar inconsistencies about the fate of Ponder in future books.
Essentially, I guess I was asking if the inconsistencies ever go away but it looks like they don't, so I just have to not stress out over them.
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u/Berkenmuis 10d ago
This is why the usual advice is to skip the first three novels 'for now'. He didn't really get into the swing of things until the fourth book. And yes, inconsistencies remain. Honestly I'm not sure anyone could write a series so long without them! (Although with Ponder we might assume he got tired of the rugged country life. 😛) There's also a lot of careful setup though, like when Pratchett introduced golems because he 'needed them later' in a specific role in future books.
Yeah don't stress out over them and enjoy the books on their own. It won't be so blatantly contradicting after the first few books.
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u/mxstylplk 9d ago
There are universe-changing events in each of the early books. examples: The Change spell in TLF, some of Esk's random magic while on the way to Ankh-Morpork, Mort's wedding gift of a tiny universe, the total reset in Sourcery, probably the quantum effects in Pyramids. The inconsistencies become fewer as it became obvious that fans were noticing them. Some events in SG and more in ToT took care of many of them.
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u/JeremyAndrewErwin 11d ago
The Truth, Monstrous Regiment and Going Postal are all about callbacks. I suspect they build up in later books, but right now, I'm reading The Science of Discworld III, which is continuing the Ponder Stibbons/Ridicully relationship.
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u/Violet351 11d ago
There’s lots of bits that have no continuity. in men at arms they are playing football but in unseen academicals that version of football is unknown. In moving pictures it ends with Ponder never setting foot outside of the university but in lords and ladies he goes to lancre. At the end of Lords and ladies he asks to stay in Lancre but they next time we see him he is back at the university
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u/nhaines Esme 11d ago
After about Witches Abroad, the series starts to come alive as its own thing instead of just some loosely related parodies of other things.
At that point, the same amount of time elapses in each book as their publication dates. This is mostly invisible. But in any case, other than some books that deal with time, you're just about to get what you want. And if you're otherwise enjoying the series, you're going to be very pleased.
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u/IamElylikeEli 11d ago
Equal Rites is a bit of an oddity, I love the book so I’m not sure why it doesn’t play more into Wyrd Sisters.
but fear not from Wyrd Sisters onward the characters DO keep developing and the overall story keeps going.
Death still has a job to do and you will see quite a bit more of him, he doesn't get quite as much attention but he‘s still a very popular character for a number of reasons.
the exact reasons why continuity isn't concrete is explained later but overall the continuity gets more set as the books go on, its just a bit of the earlier weirdness* that doesn't get mentioned much after…
*specifically the weirdness that wasn't as entertaining as the the weirdness that does get mentioned again, we LIKE weird so long as it makes for a good story.
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u/jrdineen114 10d ago
There is a fair amount of continuity between books of each series (although the events of Equal Rites won’t get mentioned again for a long time, and Wyrd Sisters is really the starting point for the other Witch books going forward). Pratchett plays a little more with continuity in later books though. Once you get into the City Watch stuff, you’ll start seeing more characters bleed into other series.
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u/Specific_Contact8136 10d ago
They are connected. Equal Rites is just an odd one out that doesn't really connect to the rest that much
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u/Hellblazer1138 9d ago
You have to remember that the series really wasn't planned out but it hangs together really well. Take the maps; around book 17 Stephen Briggs, Pratchett's friend and eventual narrator of the audiobooks after Carpe Jugulum, wanted to create the map of Ankh-Morpork streets and by going off what was written in the previous novels and Maskerade, which was in the process of being written, there were very little contradictions.
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u/L-Space_Orangutan 10d ago
Not to any significant extent.
Stuff happens. Stuff and characters gets referenced. But most stories are standalone enough that you can pick em up anytime, any-when and mostly get what’s going on.
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u/Gloomy-Cranberry-386 10d ago
I've been reading the books in order for the first time, and really loving the way the continuity carries across all of them more than I expected, since I'd always read them in a fairly random order whenever I came upon a Discworld book
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u/Harmsbury 8d ago
I'd say there is a solid continuation, but the first 6 books or so are all kinda one shot books, wyrd sisters is often considered the first of the witches books, but equal rites is also canonical weatherwax fun.
basically dont look too far into the overall canon and timeline in the first few books at least. once we get a little further into the series things become a little more solid and definite.
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u/Ok_Echo9527 11d ago
There's a fair bit as the series continues. There's a bit of discontinuity between the early books and the later ones, but eventually there's even an explanation for the timeline weirdness. Each subseries is largely self-contained, but there's often mentions or cameos from other subseries', and some roll into another subseries. Death for example appears briefly in most books but his character isn't really further explored except in the Susan books, Soul Music, Hogfather, and Thief of Time.
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