Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett

My husband and I had a theory that certain works of media have to be first experienced at a certain age or they can't properly be appreciated. In other words, it's possible to miss "it." The household example is the movie "Goonies." Most people my generation first saw it between the ages of 8 and 15, and so, have a bizarrely nostalgic sentiment attached to, let's face it, an almost comically bad film. I saw it when I was 8, I love the thing in all of its ridiculous glory even now that I'm an adult. Ryan didn't see it until his 20's, he doesn't quite understand all the fuss. He "missed it."

I didn't get around to starting the Discworld novels until my early 20's and while I enjoyed some of the later books, the early books in the series always felt like slogging through the introduction material in order to get to the "good bits." I just figured that I missed the window. I get that people loved the things but I couldn't quite grasp why.

On a whim I picked up the first book, Color of Magic, for a reread. It's a very short book after all and I hate feeling like I'm missing out on something. This time, it was a speedy and engaging read through. For some reason I found it all more amusing. Maybe I just didn't get the jokes before. I'm certainly more age appropriate to the protagonist, Rincewind, now.

Rincewind is a most unusual hero. A failure of a wizard, he nevertheless survives on his wits and linguistic abilities. It's his ability with languages that, in fact, gets him tangled up with the first ever tourist from the Golden Empire who, with his monstrous trunk made of sapient pearwood full of gold, bumbles his way cheerfully from disaster to disaster dragging Rincewind in his wake.

The end is quite the cliffhanger and I'm looking forward to picking up the next book.