My vote for Small Gods.
And if you like a little Gaiman with your Pratchett, Good Omens, which is a masterpiece of collaborative effort.
Tru dat.
Just before he wrote those, there came Strata which contains both a kernel of Discworld and a satirical approach to the Ringworld novels by Larry Niven.
It took a while before Pratchett found his groove. I seem to recall that I was slightly disappointed by the Colour of Magic as well, but fell (hard) for his writing with Guards! Guards!
And Small Gods is definitely one of his best efforts, if not the best.
I also have had people recommend the Disk World books to me, and I have tried several different ones, but I can’t find a way into that world. I have heard that Pratchett is a wonderful writer, but I just can’t get going for some reason. Maybe I don’t read far enough, but you’d think that by, at least, the end of the first chapter, I’d be ‘hooked’, but no such luck.
Bob
He seems to enjoy writing a few chapters that eschew context and correlation to one another, before opening up with what’s going on and how it all relates.
I’m not sure if his average reader enjoys the mystery of the first few chapters, but personally I didn’t care for it much.
Most of the Discworld books don’t even have chapters at all.
The first Discworld book I read was Making Money. It remains my favorite, somehow, although I also loved Reaper Man, Hogfather,* Small Gods*, and Monstrous Regiment.
Or watch the movie Dogma. Same, same.
Also Truckers, Diggers and, well, not really Flyers.
Sort of childrens books, by identifiable early Pratchett.
Not even close.
Thanks folk. I’ve reserved 3 of the titles mentioned here from our elibrary, and I’ll start with whichever becomes available first.
Small Gods
Guards! Guards!
Good Omens
If you haven’t already, check out one of the reading guides I mentioned upthread, because Small Gods and Guards! Guards are part of different series in the Discworld canon. *Small Gods * is not a starter novel (i.e., the first in a series), but it’s part of a small series, so no big deal. (Good Omens is not part of the Discworld oeuvre at all, so enjoy it whenever you want.)
Guards! Guards! is the starter novel of the “Watch” series, so you would do well to follow it with Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, etc., since the characters and plots of the later novels build on the previous ones.
There are several other series (Rincewind, Witches, Death, Industrial Revolution, TIffany Aching), each of which is like a multi-volume novel, in a way. It’s possible to read a novel in the middle of a series on its own, but in most cases there will be references to previous events that you won’t get.
Each series focuses on a set of characters that are common to all of Discworld, but will generally appear only in cameos in other series, if at all. The Watch series is a good place to start, because several of its characters – notably Sam Vimes, Sgt Colon, and Nobby Nobbs – show up in the novels of many other series. Knowing who they are makes these appearances elsewhere more meaningful. On the other hand, few of the characters in the Tiffany Aching series show up elsewhere in Discworld.
Enjoy.
Ugh, no please. This book… I dunno. Maybe I’m just a freak and can’t stand most of Neil Gaiman’s stuff, but I feel like A) Neil Gaiman has great ideas but is a terrible writer and B) Beyond the core premise, he had nothing good to contribute to Good Omens, leading him to essentially dragging Pratchett down.
Well, as other folks have mentioned, the earlier Discworld books were definitely TRYING to be this. And the latest books were absolutely NOT this. But the books in the middle are where, to me, the real magic happens. They are treatments of real problems, yes, through a fantasy world lens, but they also find the genuine humor in the absurdity of it all. The earlier books are simple flat jokey often not very funny parodies, and the later books become a bit (for me) too heavy, with just a thin varnish of “fantasy” over characters who would be perfectly at home in a novel set in the modern age. The later books have a raw power to them, yes, but they lack the genius of wrapping that in devious humor to help it go down easier that you find in the middle books - this is the place where you get your Men At Arms and Feet of Clay and Small Gods, your Hogfather and Wee Free Men. This is where Pratchett truly shines.
Enjoy! And, please, keep us posted! Well… at least drop me a note to see whether you liked them 
I thought Small Gods was a standalone. I read it that way. I loved it.
Favorite (Pratchett) book: Thief of Time (Discworld)
It is. It just has…ripples in later books.
This reading guidesays that it follows Pyramids in the Ancient Civilizations series, which consists of those two books.
That’s more just a reflection of a desire to put things in nice neat categories, than an actual relationship between the two books.
Yeah, while Pyramids and Small Gods have some similar elements (desert setting, ancient Discworld history, deals with religion), there’s no continuing plot, no reappearing major characters, and they take place largely in different time periods and different countries.
Now that I look more closely, the guide says there is only a “minor” connection between them, not a “major” one as between most books in other series.