The Light Fantastic

The Light Fantastic
Light Fantastic is the first Terry Pratchett books that I read and it was the novel that made me a fan of the novelist. It was an introduction to his style of satire and quirky characters, a style that would have a stronger presence in his latter books. Since then, I have become a Vimes fan but I always have a soft spot for his particular novel.

The story is a continuation of the plot from the previous book, The Color of Magic. It is set in Discworld and largely centers around the Unseen University and its worst wizard, Rincewind. The said wizard is going through a series of adventures, same as the last book when he first ran into Twoflower. This latter character is one of the first tourists to visit Rincewind's weird little city and, as you can imagine, chaos ensued when everyone realized Twoflower's gullible nature (not to mention his financial status, i.e. that he was loaded with moolah). Well, these two try to make sense of it all and make it out alive; they save a virgin sacrificial maiden, meet the greatest (and oldest) warrior in that region and fend off ambitious wizards trying to attack Rincewind. How will it all end?

Since I am a fan of the Watch books, this one's not the top of my re-read list. As it is, Pratchett is building up continuing story-lines and characters and thus, there is no running gag or character development as such. Furthermore, this is before the wonderfully quirky Ridcully (bless his curly boots) takes over the University. So, the University was still being fleshed out in this book. For me, I read this novel more to enjoy the funny wordplay jokes, humorous observations and social commentary. After all, Pratchett is at his best when dissecting social norms and myths and he does exceptionally well in this book.

While I did make a point about the Vimes-less factor, I must say that there were certain lovable characters in this novel. For instance there is Cohen the Barbarian. That has got to be the best parody of the famous legend (alongside Weird Al's Conan the Librarian). Pratchett's portrayal of the fearful warrior as someone who loves the simply things in life (next to a bit of looting) makes sense; I mean, of course a worldly warrior like that would be in the know about travel must-haves. And of course Death makes a guest appearance in this novel again. You comes across his traits, albeit briefly, but these are traits that are built upon in later novels. If you read the other books before you read this, it will be an interesting experience to see how he first played around with the Death character.

The bit of in-house fighting amongst wizards was also hilarious. This is different from the latter books where there is a semblance of an order under Ridcully and everyone just gets along with each other. The conniving ways of the wizards described in this novel will make you laugh and cringe. It's the nutty side of life, a glimpse at what happens when a group of old foggies in robes become a tad desperate.