The Color of Magic

The Color of Magic is the first in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, which consists 41 books, I believe. I really hadn't read much about the Discworld series other than it is humorous and seems to have almost a cult following. We learn in the prolog that Discworld is a disc carried on the backs of four great elephants which in turn are standing on the back of a great turtle, A'Tuin, swimming through space. There are several theories among the scientifically minded on Discworld.

"There was, for example, the theory that A'Tuin had come from nowhere and would continue at a uniform crawl, or steady gait, into nowhere, for all time. This theory was popular among academics. An alternative, favored by those of a religious persuasion, was that A'Tuin was crawling from the Birthplace to the Time of Mating, as were all the stars in the sky which were, obviously, also carried by giant turtles. When they arrived they would briefly and passionately mate, for the first and only time, and from that fiery union new turtles would be born to carry a new pattern of worlds. This was known as the Big Bang hypothesis."

I found this bit in the prolog to be the most amusing passage in the book. The story is lighthearted and rather silly at times. The Color of Magic was not bad, but not really good enough to encourage reading more in the Discworld series, but reportedly it isn't as good as later books in the series. They are supposed to get better. So I will read the next book, and if it's better, then I may read the one after that, but I can't imagine reading them all; Certainly not in a short period of time. If I were to read them all, it would take me decades.