A search for the right Discworld reading order can leave you with more homework than reading. There are 41 novels, several recurring casts, and enough suggested starting points to make choosing the first book feel harder than it should.

The books share a world, but they do not form one continuous adventure. You can follow a particular cast, read everything in publication order, or try a standalone novel before committing to a longer run.

For a first visit, try Guards! Guards! if you like mysteries, or Mort if an apprentice working for Death sounds more appealing. Both begin their own strands. The sections below explain the other starting points, followed by the complete publication list.

Discworld is a comic fantasy setting carried through space by a giant turtle. Its inhabitants still have work to do, rules to misunderstand, and neighbors to contend with. The strange setting gives Pratchett room to make familiar situations wonderfully inconvenient.

Publication order lets you discover the world as it developed. It begins with The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic, then moves between different characters. This suits a reader who enjoys seeing an author's approach change over a long series.

Character order keeps you with one recurring cast. If you become attached to the City Watch, for example, you can read its next case without stopping for several unrelated adventures. This is usually the more manageable choice when you are still finding out whether Discworld suits you.

A standalone offers another way in. You can finish one complete novel and decide whether to explore the wider setting afterward. You do not need to learn the geography before opening the book.

Sam Vimes and the Ankh-Morpork Night Watch have a dragon problem. Guards! Guards! puts a struggling group of watchmen at the center of a city-sized emergency, giving the reader a concrete problem to follow while the setting takes shape around it.

Readers who enjoy investigations and conversations between mismatched colleagues have plenty to follow here. The Watch gives the story a familiar framework even when the creatures and customs are unfamiliar.

Continue with: Men at Arms, then Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, Night Watch, Thud!, and Snuff. Staying in that order lets the relationships accumulate. Save the later cases until you know the earlier Watch.

In Mort, a young man takes a job with Death. His employer is a skeleton with a scythe, but the arrangement also involves accommodation, practical duties, and the awkward business of learning what a job allows you to do.

The apprenticeship gives a newcomer someone to learn alongside. The duties sound ordinary until you consider who is assigning them. For a reader curious about Death, this is the place to meet him at work.

The Death sequence continues: Reaper Man, Soul Music, Hogfather, and Thief of Time. These books do not simply repeat Mort's apprenticeship; the strand expands to other people whose lives intersect with Death.

Equal Rites introduces Esk, a girl who unexpectedly inherits a wizard's staff. Granny Weatherwax helps her deal with a world of magic that has strong ideas about who belongs where. Granny's common sense makes an effective guide through the confusion.

This is the opening of the Witches sequence. Wyrd Sisters, the next book, brings Granny together with Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick. If the appeal is the witches as a group, that second novel is also a reasonable place to begin. Readers who like fairy tales and theatrical mischief have a different kind of entry here than the Watch offers.

After Wyrd Sisters: read Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Maskerade, and Carpe Jugulum. Follow their publication sequence rather than choosing a later volume solely because its premise catches your eye.

Going Postal hands con artist Moist von Lipwig a daunting assignment: revive Ankh-Morpork's failing postal service. Undelivered letters, difficult employees, and a competing communications system give him plenty to contend with.

Moist has to talk, improvise, and get a neglected institution working. That practical objective is easy to follow while you get to know the city. Although it appears late in Discworld's publication order, it begins Moist's own series. You can meet him here without reading the preceding 32 novels.

Moist's remaining novels are: Making Money and Raising Steam, in that order. Three books make this a comparatively small reading project, with room to explore the rest of Ankh-Morpork later.

Tiffany Aching begins with a frying pan, a great deal of common sense, and trouble arriving from Fairyland. The Nac Mac Feegle, a clan of tiny blue fighters, are her unlikely helpers in The Wee Free Men.

This strand follows Tiffany as she grows, so its order matters to the experience. Tiffany has to learn what responsibility means when the trouble is close to home. The younger central character does not make the story free of frightening moments; the Fairyland danger is part of its premise.

Follow Tiffany through: A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, I Shall Wear Midnight, and The Shepherd's Crown. Let her earlier experiences come first rather than jumping directly to the last book.

Small Gods begins with a god, Om, reduced to the form of a tortoise, and Brutha, the person available to help him. That imbalance gives the book its central relationship and its questions about belief, kindness, and doing the right thing.

Small Gods gives readers who want a standalone a complete predicament to follow. You will encounter the setting through Brutha and Om's predicament instead of having to catch up on earlier adventures.

Finishing this book does not put you at the beginning of a Small Gods sequence. Your next choice can be a different cast or another independent story, guided by whichever part of the writing you enjoyed.

The Color of Magic pairs Twoflower, a tourist, with Rincewind, a wizard whose ability to stay out of danger leaves much to be desired. It is the first published Discworld novel and the beginning of the Wizards/Rincewind strand.

The early adventure leans into fantasy parody. Starting here makes sense if you enjoy that mode or specifically want to follow the whole series from its beginning. If a detective story or a more focused apprenticeship appeals more, one of the other openings may be a better match.

Read The Light Fantastic next: it carries on Rincewind and Twoflower's adventure. Then the Rincewind route moves through Sourcery, Eric, Interesting Times, and The Last Continent. The Last Hero is an illustrated adventure; Unseen Academicals is a later university-centered novel grouped with the Wizards books. Read those two in that publication order.

Use this list if you want to read the complete series as it appeared. The positions below refer to the whole Discworld sequence, rather than to one character's books. Keep a separate note of what you have read if you switch between a character route and this list.

1. The Color of Magic
2. The Light Fantastic
3. Equal Rites
4. Mort
5. Sourcery
6. Wyrd Sisters
7. Pyramids
8. Guards! Guards!
9. Eric
10. Moving Pictures
11. Reaper Man
12. Witches Abroad
13. Small Gods
14. Lords and Ladies
15. Men at Arms
16. Soul Music
17. Interesting Times
18. Maskerade
19. Feet of Clay
20. Hogfather
21. Jingo
22. The Last Continent
23. Carpe Jugulum
24. The Fifth Elephant
25. The Truth
26. Thief of Time
27. The Last Hero
28. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
29. Night Watch
30. The Wee Free Men
31. Monstrous Regiment
32. A Hat Full of Sky
33. Going Postal
34. Thud!
35. Wintersmith
36. Making Money
37. Unseen Academicals
38. I Shall Wear Midnight
39. Snuff
40. Raising Steam
41. The Shepherd's Crown

Write down your first book and its next step before you start looking at editions. That small note is more useful than keeping several competing reading charts open. You can change routes after a novel without losing track of where you left off.

If the cast is what keeps you reading, stay with it. If the setting interests you more, move to another strand and keep your completed titles on the publication checklist. Avoid reading descriptions of later books in detail: even a short sales synopsis can give away something you would prefer to discover in the story.

Readers who want to explore nearby kinds of comic fantasy can also browse the store's humorous fantasy collection. Check the individual premise rather than assuming every humorous fantasy book will feel like Discworld.