Here is the single most important thing to know about Terry Pratchett's Discworld, and we're putting it up top so you can't miss it: do not start with book one. The Colour of Magic is a perfectly fine parody of 1980s fantasy, but it's Pratchett before he became Pratchett — and more prospective fans have bounced off Discworld by dutifully starting at the beginning than by any other method. Forty-one books, and the worst possible entry point is the one labeled "1." Publishing is funny like that.
The good news: Discworld isn't really one series. It's a world — flat, carried through space on four elephants standing on a giant turtle, don't worry about it — hosting several loosely connected sub-series, each following its own cast. So this guide is organized the way the Disc actually works: by sub-series, each one complete and in order, all forty-one novels accounted for. Pick the door that sounds most like you, read that arc front to back, then wander into the next one. Bookmark this page; it's built to be the only Discworld map you'll need.
Door one: The City Watch — 8 books (the crowd favorite)
If you make us pick one door for you, it's this one. The City Watch books follow the beleaguered police force of Ankh-Morpork — a city that treats crime less as a problem and more as an economy — and their commander Sam Vimes, one of the great characters in all of fantasy. Come for the jokes, stay for the fact that these are secretly some of the sharpest books about power, class, and justice you'll ever read.
The most-recommended Discworld starting point, full stop. A secret society summons a dragon to terrorize the city, and the only people standing in the way are a drunk captain, a well-meaning six-foot dwarf (adopted), and a night watch that exists mostly on paper. Funny from the first page, and it needs zero background — this is the door most readers should walk through first.
The Watch expands, someone invents the Disc's first (and ideally last) firearm, and Vimes is supposed to be retiring. Pratchett's satire gets noticeably sharper here — this is the book where the sub-series locks into what it's going to be.
A murder mystery involving golems, poison, and the question of who has the right to be considered a person. The Watch books at their most detective-novel, and one of the most quietly moving entries in the whole series.
A new island surfaces between two nations and both immediately claim it, marching everyone toward a pointless war. Pratchett aims his full satirical firepower at nationalism and jingoism, and somehow it gets more relevant every single year.
Vimes is sent to the wilds of Überwald as a diplomat — a job he is spectacularly unsuited for — and lands in the middle of dwarf politics, werewolf politics, and at least one actual crime, which is a relief, because crimes he can solve.
A magical accident throws Vimes thirty years into his own past, where he must mentor his younger self through a revolution he already remembers losing people to. Routinely voted the single best Discworld novel — and it earns it. The payoff for everything the Watch books have built.
The anniversary of an ancient dwarf-troll battle threatens to reignite it in the streets of Ankh-Morpork, while Vimes must be home by six o'clock sharp to read to his son, no matter what. Both halves of that sentence matter equally, which is the whole magic of late-era Pratchett.
Vimes takes a countryside holiday, and within days has found — to his genuine satisfaction — a crime. The final Watch novel, closing out the arc of fantasy's best policeman.
Door two: Death — 5 books (the short, strange, moving one)
Death — capital D, seven feet tall, SPEAKS LIKE THIS, rides a horse named Binky — appears in nearly every Discworld book, but this sub-series makes him the star. These are shorter and stranger than the Watch books, and they sneak up on you emotionally in a way comic fantasy has no right to.
Death takes an apprentice — a gangly farm boy named Mort — and discovers that delegating the ultimate job has consequences. Short, nearly perfect, and the other most-recommended entry point into the Disc. If Guards! Guards! doesn't sound like your speed, start here instead.
Death is forcibly retired and decides to try living instead, taking a job as a farmhand under the name Bill Door. What sounds like a one-joke premise becomes one of the most touching books Pratchett ever wrote about time, work, and what a life is actually for.
Music With Rocks In arrives on the Disc, a young musician becomes its unwilling avatar, and Death's granddaughter Susan — one of the series' best characters — steps in to cover the family business. Rock and roll, as filtered through Pratchett, with every music joke he could fit.
The Disc's version of Santa goes missing, and Death — reasoning that belief must be maintained — puts on the red suit himself. A Christmas book, a surprisingly deep meditation on why humans need stories, and home to one of the most-quoted passages in the entire series.
The Auditors of reality commission a clock that will stop time itself, and it falls to Susan, the History Monks, and Death to prevent the end of everything. Widely ranked among the very best Discworld novels, and a genuinely satisfying close to the Death arc.
Door three: The Witches — 6 books (the sharp one)
Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg are the greatest double act in fantasy — a flinty, terrifyingly competent witch and her cheerfully scandalous best friend, running headlong through send-ups of Shakespeare, fairy tales, and opera. If you like your comedy with claws, this is your door. One note on order: Equal Rites comes first by publication, but it's early-era Pratchett and only loosely connected — plenty of readers start at Wyrd Sisters and circle back, which is what we'd suggest.
A dying wizard passes his staff to a newborn — who turns out to be a girl, which the Disc's magical establishment insists is impossible. Granny Weatherwax's first appearance, in rougher early form. Loosely connected to the rest of the arc; fine to read first, equally fine to save for later.
Three witches, a murdered king, a usurper, and a kingdom that is not happy about any of it — Macbeth, if the witches were the heroes and considerably more sensible than everyone else. The proper start of the Witches arc and one of Pratchett's first genuinely great books.
The witches travel to stop a wedding, in a book that ruthlessly dismantles fairy tales and the tyranny of stories that insist on ending "the way they're supposed to." Nanny Ogg abroad is worth the price of admission alone.
Elves return to the Disc, and they are not the noble creatures the ballads remember — Pratchett restores them to their old folklore menace with genuinely unsettling results. The Witches books at their darkest and best.
The witches infiltrate the Ankh-Morpork opera house, where a masked figure is escalating from notes to murders. The Phantom of the Opera, thoroughly Pratchett-ed, with Nanny Ogg's cookbook subplot as a bonus.
Modern, reasonable, "we've moved past all that biting" vampires are invited into the kingdom of Lancre — which turns out to be exactly as bad an idea as it sounds. The final Granny Weatherwax-led novel, and a dark, strong finish to the arc.
Door four: Tiffany Aching — 5 books (the one to hand anyone, any age)
Written later in Pratchett's career and nominally young adult, the Tiffany Aching books follow a nine-year-old shepherd girl who decides to become a witch — armed with a frying pan, a library, and the Nac Mac Feegle, six-inch-tall blue warriors whose solutions to most problems involve headbutting them. Don't let the YA label fool you; plenty of adult readers call these the best thing he ever wrote. This arc continues the Witches' world, so it also works beautifully read straight after door three.
By
Terry Pratchett
Tiffany Aching's little brother is stolen by the Queen of the Elves, so Tiffany — nine years old, armed with a frying pan — goes to get him back. Technically for younger readers, actually for everyone, and one of the warmest entry points into the entire Disc.
By
Terry Pratchett
Tiffany leaves home to formally study witchcraft and is followed by something ancient and bodiless that wants to wear her like a coat. The series grows up alongside its heroine, and this is where the real depth starts showing.
By
Terry Pratchett
Tiffany dances where she shouldn't, and Winter itself falls in love with her — with consequences for the whole world's seasons. Funny, mythic, and quietly one of the best books about adolescence in modern fantasy.
By
Terry Pratchett
Tiffany, now a working witch, faces something far worse than monsters: a rising tide of old fear and hatred toward witches themselves. The darkest Tiffany book, and one of Pratchett's most direct statements about scapegoating and mobs.
By
Terry Pratchett
Tiffany inherits a responsibility that changes everything, in the final Discworld novel Pratchett ever wrote — published after his death, and a deliberate, moving passing of the torch. Yes, you will cry. No, we won't be taking questions about it.
Door five: Rincewind and the wizards — 8 books (the chaotic original)
The arc that started it all: Rincewind, a wizard so bad at magic his hat has "WIZZARD" spelled wrong on it, whose one true talent is running away — usually from the plot. These are the Disc's earliest and silliest books, closest to pure fantasy parody, and while we don't recommend starting here, they're a delight once you already love the world. Completists, this is your aisle.
Where it all began: the Disc's first tourist hires the Disc's worst wizard as a guide, with luggage that has legs and homicidal tendencies. Rougher and more parody-driven than what the series became — read it as a historical artifact you've earned, not a first impression.
The direct sequel — the only true two-parter in Discworld — in which a great red star looms and the Disc's only hope is, catastrophically, Rincewind. The early duology's stronger half.
A sourcerer — a wizard squared, a source of magic itself — arrives at Unseen University, and the wizarding world immediately proves it cannot be trusted with real power. Rincewind, naturally, runs.
A teenage demonologist summons what he believes is a demon and gets Rincewind instead, in Pratchett's short, sharp riff on Faust. The quickest read in the entire series.
Rincewind is fired across the world to the Agatean Empire, where a very polite revolution is brewing and an elderly barbarian horde is planning its greatest heist. Sharper political satire than the early Rincewind books, and the arc's high point.
Rincewind washes up on the Disc's driest, deadliest, most suspiciously Australian continent. An extended, affectionate riff on an entire country, with the wizards of Unseen University bumbling along behind.
By
Terry Pratchett,
Paul Kidby
Cohen the Barbarian, ancient and furious about mortality, marches to return fire to the gods — with interest — and only a very reluctant coalition can stop him. A short, gorgeous, fully illustrated fable, and a send-off for the Disc's old-school heroes.
The wizards of Unseen University discover they must — horror of horrors — field a football team. Late-era Pratchett turns the beautiful game, fandom, and belonging into one of his warmest books.
Door six: Moist von Lipwig — 3 books (the con-man trilogy)
Late-era Pratchett at his most acclaimed: Moist von Lipwig, a con man given a series of government jobs on the theory that it takes a fraud to run one, drags Ankh-Morpork into the modern age one institution at a time. If you know someone who "doesn't read fantasy" but does read about business, politics, or scams, hand them these.
A con man is given a choice: be hanged, or take over Ankh-Morpork's derelict post office. A late-era masterpiece about fraud, institutions, and second chances — and one of the best standalone-friendly entry points in the whole series.
Having fixed the mail, Moist is handed the Royal Mint and the bank attached to it — and discovers that money is the biggest confidence trick of all. Pratchett on economics, and somehow it's riveting.
By
Terry Pratchett
The railway arrives on the Disc, and Moist is put in charge of making sure it doesn't destroy everything on the way. The last Ankh-Morpork novel, and a fitting one: the whole city Pratchett spent forty books building, finally in motion.
The standalones — 6 books (no context required)
Some of the very best Discworld novels belong to no sub-series at all, which makes them ideal for commitment-phobes and excellent gifts. Any of these can be your first Discworld book — and one of them is routinely voted the best of all forty-one.
The heir to a tiny desert kingdom returns home from assassin school to find tradition has plans for him — and that building one pyramid too many can break time itself. Ancient-Egypt-flavored, completely self-contained, and criminally underrated.
The magic of the movies arrives on the Disc — literally, and the "literally" is the problem. Holy Wood calls, reality frays, and Pratchett gets to fire every film joke ever made in a single book.
A great god wakes up to discover he has exactly one true believer left — a simple novice named Brutha — and has been reduced to the form of a small, irritated tortoise. Routinely voted the single best Discworld novel, and a sharper book about religion, belief, and institutions than most serious literary fiction manages. Requires zero Discworld knowledge.
Ankh-Morpork gets its first newspaper, entirely by accident, and William de Worde discovers that the truth is a stranger, more dangerous commodity than anyone selling it admits. Pratchett on journalism — written decades ago, more current every year.
A young woman cuts her hair, takes a new name, and joins the army of a small, permanently warring nation to find her brother. One of Pratchett's sharpest and most pointed books — about war, gender, and the stories nations tell themselves — and fully standalone.
By
Terry Pratchett
A talking cat, a clan of intelligent rats, and a pied-piper scam that walks into a town with a much darker secret than theirs. Technically Discworld's first YA novel, actually a Carnegie Medal winner that outclasses most "adult" fantasy.
Frequently muttered questions
"So what order do I read the doors themselves in?" Truly, whatever appeals. But if you want our house route: Watch → Death → Witches → Tiffany → Moist → standalones sprinkled throughout whenever you need a palate cleanser → Rincewind last, as a victory lap. That order front-loads Pratchett at his best and saves the roughest early books for when you'll read them with affection instead of confusion.
"Do the sub-series connect?" Constantly, and it's delightful — characters wander through each other's books, and the city of Ankh-Morpork ties half the series together. But nothing is required reading for anything else. Pratchett wrote every book to stand on its own feet.
"How many will I end up reading?" In our experience? All forty-one. Nobody plans to. It just happens, somewhere around book six, and one day you look up and your shelf has a turtle-shaped dent in it.
Where to go from here
If a completed, planned-out universe is more your speed than Discworld's glorious sprawl, our guide to reading Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere in order is the natural companion piece — the two series are opposite philosophies of world-building and both completely worth your time. And for more fantasy beyond both, there's always our 50 best fantasy books of all time.
Already a Discworld reader? Tell us your door in. We're a Watch shop first and a Witches shop second, but we've been known to argue about it.
