Month: October 2019

This is the book that introduced me to 20 years of absolute magic. Pratchett’s writing was funny and subtly genius, and he delighted in taking the often nonsensical clichés of fantasy literature and turning them on their ear for comedic effect and social commentary. His books are comedies filled with death, but murder and cruelty are never played for laughs. Every character on Discworld is deeply human, especially the monsters.

I never liked reading fantasy until I read The Fifth Elephant. I never connected with it. Pratchett changed the way I look at the genre. He humanized it in a way I have rarely encountered, and made me feel cautiously hopeful for humanity.