 |
|
|
|
|
The Light Fantastic: Discworld #2, by Terry Pratchett | ||||
 he
Light Fantastic is the 2nd novel in Terry Pratchett's
legendary DiscWorld series, and the third book in the series that I've
read. I started off with #26, A
Thief of Time, thanks to a reader donation, and liked it well
enough to start reading the whole series in order. The first book, The
Color of Magic, was good enough to keep me going on to #2,
partially because #1 ended in a cliff-hanger. Literally. As such,
book #2, The Light Fantastic, isn't really a complete novel. It's
more like the second half of The Color of Magic, with action
picking up right where the first one left off, and while you could read this one by
itself, you'll get a lot more out of it if you read #1 first. And you'll
enjoy #1 more if your read #2 afterwards, since they're so tightly-linked.
To the scores, with The Light Fantastic compared to the scores I previously awarded The Color of Magic.
The Light Fantastic is better overall because it's got a better plot, even though it's not quite as inventive or funny throughout. Lots of wacky things happened in book one, but that's pretty much all they were; wacky things happening to the same characters. There wasn't any sense of building action or tension, and when the book ended it was pretty clearly right in the middle of another adventure; an adventure that book 2 opens up by quickly concluding in very magical fashion. From there book 2 starts almost from scratch, with Rincewind, Twoflower, and his magical luggage trudging across the wilds, and all that matters from book 1 is that we already know their characters, and something of the world they're traveling through. You'll note that while I gave book 2 a higher plot score, it's still just a 6, and while book 2's plot is better than book 1's, it's still basically just more "the further adventures of" type stuff. It's more cohesive and coherent than book 1 was though, and builds to a climax and has an actual conclusion and resolution like a real novel. If you're more interested in a coherent story, you'll prefer book 2. If you just want to see madcap adventures and fantasy conventions satirized, you'll have more fun with book 1. As for the obvious question; if these two novels were merged into one whole, I'd give it a higher score than either half got individually, but it still wouldn't be rated a masterpiece or anything. The plot just isn't that good, and as I said, book 1 really has no plot; it's just a bunch of wacky adventures, none of which matter when book 2 begins, except as background info. For a fantasy (or any kind of novel) to rate a really high score on plot and overall from me, the first 50% can't just be filler; they've got to be leading up to and connected to the later stuff, and not just by virtue of starring the same characters.
Other than that, Light Fantastic is just Color of Magic part 2. The characters are mostly the same, and while book 2 is less inventive, I felt more involved in the story this time around, in large part because there was a story. I don't think the author's style changed much, if at all, so my higher scores for writing quality are more about me than Pratchett's work. With book 1 I was new to things and took a while to get into them. I got into the flow of book 2 immediately, and it therefore felt smoother to me. That doesn't mean I'm going to reread book 1 and up those scores, though. First impressions and all that. Besides, life isn't fair, and neither are book reviews. Both are sometimes unexpectedly short, however. |
|||||
| Return to the Reviews Index. |
|
All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007. |
