Ah, right, I remember him. Or his sofa, at least.
Oddly enough, in one of my earlier posts, I was going to compare Adams with Seinfeld (the comedian, not the TV show) myself, except I didn’t exactly intend it to be exactly complimentary. It would never have occured to me to compare Pratchett with Frasier, but since you brought it up, I always thought it was a much funnier show than Seinfeld. C’est la vie*, as they say.
[sub]*French for “You’re all WRONG!”[/sub]
Hmm, I would have put Wodehouse a lot closer to Pratchett than to Adams, as much of the pleasure of reading Wodehouse comes from following the plots and seeing how he contrives to get his characters out of the messes he puts them in.
There’s also the earlier The Pratchett Portfolio. Surprising little overlap between the books, really, though Portfolio is admittedly rather thin. And I’m pretty sure that the GURPS Discworld sourcebook has a number of Kidby sketches that haven’t appeared in either of those two.
They’re not as easy on the eyes as Paul Kidby’s stuff, but I find the hyper-detailed art appealing in a quirky way. But then, I also like Slug Sigorino’s stuff… 
I cannot afford the hardback Going Postal, and have a choice either to sit and sneakily read a chapter at a time in a bookstore, or wait for the paperback to come out.
So far the sneaking is winning.
It’s out in paperback on October 1st.
And Thud and the new children’s book (Where’s My Cow?) come out in October as well.
I think you’d like them.
If you choose to read them in chronological order, be aware that the first two are three, Pratchett was “honing his craft”, so to speak. After those, fasten your seat belt, 'cause it’s gonna be a helluva ride!
Good golly. Can one bring up Adams without this turning into Pratchett-vs-Adams? I’ve read almost everything by both authors and like them both. Although someone similar in style, they really are two different authors with different ways of putting together novels and that’s a good thing. It doesn’t mean we have to start ranking them #1 and #857 or whatever is going on here.
Oh, and Iain Banks? I like Banks too, but what the heck is he even doing in this conversation? As far as I can tell, the only thing he has in common with the other two is he’s British. Stylistically he is quite different.
Seems to me like that’s the consensus of the majority. It’s merely a matter of raking, sorta like eating one of Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler’s sausages inna bun vs. eating one of Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler’s gourmet sausages inna bun (the ones in the secret compartment for the special customers). 
Although, generally speaking, without quite as much amoebic dysentary after you’re finished.
I hate to follow a couple of such wonderfully conciliatory posts like I’m about to, but now that I’ve finally forced myself to finish Guards! Guards!, (which I chose as a first Pratchett novel based on recpmmedations in a SDMB thread) I want to have my say.
I agree wholeheartedly with the criticisms of Pratchett by ISiddiqui and SolGrundy. I found the point comparing Pratchett and Adams to Frasier and Seinfeld particularly apt. It’s the conventional narrative structure that really killed Guards! Guards! for me. As soon as I realized that Carrot was destined neither for a gruesome death nor a hopelessly inadequate reign, and that drunken, cynical Captain Vimes wouldn’t end up back in the gutter–when I realized, IOW, that it was a novel about redemption–I lost a great deal of my interest. Redemption’s a great topic for a serious novel, but anathema to satire.
Overall, it struck me an utterly conventional and unoriginal novel. More parody than satire, really. Worst was Captain Vimes, who was just Bogey with a British accent and iron helmet. (Pratchett even had to bludgeon it home to us by having Vimes actually say, “Here’s looking at you kid!” :smack: ) He’s also the Gruff Cynic With the Heart of Gold who seems irredeemable at the beginning but magically develops skill, training, and determination at just the right time to figure things out and save the day. Blech!!! Even the parody doesn’t work! How can you pretend to parody conventions like the One-In-a-Million Chance (that just might work) or the long-lost king who returns when the counrty is threatened, when you use hoary cliches like that?
Maybe I wouldn’t feel so strongly if it hadn’t been for threads like this one comparing Pratchett to Adams (favorably) that interested me in Pratchett in the first place. I can imagine someone liking both authors, but not for the same reasons. They’re almost opposits, really, in terms of style and tone. Adams writes absurdist Pythonesque satire, while Pratchett, AFAICT, writes conventional but well-crafted-for-the-genre parodies. (Nothing close to great lit, though. Really, what else do you guys read?) The gags are funny–I’ll give him that–but I like satire; I generally dislike parody. (Except for Mel Brooks at his peak, mind you.)
I want to like Pratchett–I seem to be the kind of person who “ought” to like him. But Guards! Guards! was so highly praised as a great starting point, I’m not much inclined to spend time on him.
You might want to try Soul Music instead. It’s got an awesome premise and a good plot. It even has a Death of Rats.
I think the key you’re missing is “starting point”. i.e. he improves with every novel, more or less. Yes, he started out as just a parodist, but he’s moved far past that by now, though still with the occasional nod in that direction.
True, it may be that you’ll never warm to him, but as an introduction to his writing style, his characters, his world, the first City Watch novel is as fine a place as any. You might also try the Witches novels, less parody and more character there. You perhaps wouldn’t like the Rincewind novels so much. But you may find the Death/Susan novels would be more to your taste.
Sample them all before making your final decision, is my advice.