La Huitième Couleur

I wavered between 3 and 4 stars for this. Overall I enjoyed it: I've read a couple of his other books and this is what you'd expect from a Pratchett novel (whimsical, witty, eccentric). You can feel the beginnings of his style taking shape here, which is fun to see. I get the feeling that Rincewind isn't a fan favourite character but I found him entertaining. That said it was a little all over the place plot-wise, and felt quite chaotic. The pacing was also not very refined. All in all though it's a solid start to the epic Discworld series.

This is the first Discworld book but my second, having read Small Gods first, and although supposedly they can be read in any order I prefer, much like Star Wars, to read in the published sequence, as in this case (not Star Wars), it looks like the books get better over time. This one is still fun but doesn't have the sly digs of Small Gods, it's more like a D&D parody. And while I complained about the lack of women with speaking roles in Small Gods, there are a couple of notable female characters here, admittedly with high levels of nudity (it's a miracle HBO didn't adapt this instead of Game of Thrones), but both in leadership positions, one queen and one goddess, so take that DEI and smoke it!

That sentence was on the front cover of the edition I've read (although I usually despise comments places there apart from title/author) and it was quite on the spot for once: the style and irony of Jerome K. Jerome applied in an archetypal fantasy novel. Not sure about the Peter Pan's part of that comment, as I didn't read it yet, but I guess: Twoflower makes for it?

In any case, it was a very slow reading compared to the first one I've discovered from the Discworld saga ("Sourcery"), so the enthusiasm went a bit down and it's understandable I found it less appealing also given it's the first one -but I've liked it nonetheless as an absurd/whimsical reading! ;)