This is the Discworld. It exists on the edge of the reality curve and occasionally falls off. It is a world where Gods depend on people's belief to survive, narrativium is the most powerful element in the world, witches and wizards refuse to do magic because they'd be good at it and reality is kind of an optional extra to life. It is a parody of a fantasy world that runs on wordplay and satire.
The first book was
The Colour of Magic in 1983, following inept wizard Rincewind, who has one of the Eight Great Spells in his head and as such cannot learn any other spells because they're too scared to live inside of his skull. He has been tasked with protecting Twoflower, the Disc's first tourist and a man who sees the world through a rose-coloured brain- which gives him a life expectancy of about minus twelve seconds in Ankh-Morpork, the toughest city on the Disc (based off of medieval London, Glasgow, Prague, Paris, or generally any large city built on a river that was active in the sixteenth or seventeenth century.)
There are 39 "official" Discworld books, each generally following one particular character set. The main sets are Rincewind, the Wizards (these two groups are synonymous in later books as Rincewind searches desperately for a normal life), the Witches, the City Watch, Moist Von Lipwig, Tiffany Aching and the Feegles (who frequently crosses over with the Witches and in one case the Watch) and Death. Death is the only character to appear in every single book except for some of the Feegle books, which are aimed at a slightly younger set than the main books. And there are dozens of spinoff and reference books tied in, including an actual run of the "Where's My Cow?" picture book that appears in the later Watch books.
Rincewind and the Wizards
Wizards in Discworld start studying at Unseen University as teenagers, spend most of their young adult life as students and then, after graduating, make up a University post and spend the next ninety years performing smelly experiments in their studies, reading heavy books, and eating twelve-course meals for a light snack. They don't use much magic because they've been trained to do magic very well indeed, and magic is both living and dangerous. The last time wizards used magic, in the Wizard's War, is never detailed in the books, but one area of magical fallout is seen- grass will never grow there again, and if you flip a coin it may come down a fish.
The wizards are generally fat, lazy and hopelessly out of touch with the world, but at least once in every book we are reminded quite vividly that they are some of the most intelligent and powerful men on the Disc (with one exception, wizards are never women).
The Witches
Witches books are generally set in the rural area of the Ramtops Mountains, in the kind of small villages where people are always pleased and surprised to see someone that they're not related to, but Witches exist all across the Disc. They are always female. Unlike Wizard magic, which depends on dribbly candles and bursts of flame and trolling the laws of physics, Witch magic is all in the head. Witches are all equals and don't have leaders, unlike wizards, and Granny Weatherwax is the most highly regarded of the leaders that they don't have. Witches books all follow her and her coven, which always contains Granny Weatherwax's best friend Nanny Ogg, she of the several marriages and many children and many,
many grandchildren. Probably has more control over the kingdom of Lancre than the king due to being related by blood or marriage to most of it. Owns an insane and indestructible cat called Greebo. The third member in the earlier books is the rather soppy Magrat Garlick, and in later books is Agnes Nitt, who made up an imaginary friend called Perdita and unfortunately for her, being a witch, Perdita became a very real separate mind inside of her head. A very heavy theme in all of the Witches books is the power of stories.
The City Watch
Starts off with the three-man Night Watch of the fetid city-state of Ankh-Morpork, consisting of broken drunkard Captain Vimes, the eternally lazy Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs, who has a signed note from his mother and the midwife to prove that he's human. In their first book they pick up the large, shiny and enthusiastic new recruit Carrot at the same time that a dragon begins to ravage the city. Through their books the Watch rises in prominence and power, swelling with new recruits including dwarves, trolls, gnomes, a werewolf, a vampire, a Feegle, and Nobby. Vimes continues to get more badass with every book. The Watch books are among the more emotional in the series, cutting right to the heart of human nature.
Moist Von Lipwig
A two-book wonder who would probably love to meet the Kaitou Kid. Former conman who, as an alternative to hanging, is put in charge of the decrepit and crumbling city Post Office, a job which just so happens to have claimed the lives of the previous several incumbents in the past year. In the second book, he is placed in charge of the city bank. Has a liking for shiny gold suits and hats and is such an accomplished BSer that he frequently tricks reality into going his way. A heavy underrunning theme of the books is the treatment of Golems, magical clay slaves on the Disc whose are treated as (and think of themselves as) property or tools, and whose only concept of freedom is to buy themselves. The books also feature a higher concentration than usual of Lord Vetinari, who I am going to give his own bit because he's so awesome.
Lord Vetinari
The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork in all of the books except the past sections of
Night Watch and possibly the earlier books. He believes in One Man, One Vote- he is the Man and he has the Vote. Rules Ankh-Morpork with a quiet, efficient tyranny, and has managed to make AM
work- so well, in fact, that the Assassin's Guild will not take out a contract on him because to do so would throw the city into disarray. Legalized the Thieve's Guild so that theft would be organized, scheduled and subjected to non-violence rules; citizens pay a small annual fee and can walk the streets free of theft. Any unauthorized thieving is dealt with harshly by the Guild, and as a result crime has dropped. Vetinari appears in pretty much every book set in Ankh-Morpork and is generally in control of EVERYTHING. Also the most quietly cynical person in the entire universe.
Tiffany Aching and the Feegles
There are four Feegle books, initially aimed at a younger set though the fourth,
I Shall Wear Midnight, is distinctly darker in tone than the others. They begin with nine-year-old Tiffany Aching setting out for Fairyland with a frying pan to rescue her little brother, aided by the Nac Mac Feegle, a race of six-inch-tall blue men based on every Violent Glaswegian stereotype in the world and capable of knocking out an elephant with a headbutt. They are
awesome. The books play with fairy tales and mythology a lot, and also with the strange and wonderful world of growing up- Tiffany ages two years with every book.
Death
DEATH ALWAYS TALKS IN SMALL CAPS, WHICH I CAN'T FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO HERE. Death is in every book, but appears in his own series as well. He is, surprise surprise, the anthropomorphic personification of death, a six-foot-tall skeleton in a black robe with a scythe (or a sword when he's feeling flashy), appearing whenever someone dies to take them where they need to be. Has grown a bit too curious about life in the course of his work and has occasional flings with humanity, including adopting a daughter and hiring an apprentice, who go off, get married, and have a daughter who picks up some interesting soul genetics from her grandfather. He has a counterpart in the Grim Squeaker, the Death of Small Rodents, who appears as a rat skeleton in a tiny hooded robe and scythe. He rides a white horse called Binky and has a manservant named Albert who will fry anything. He occasionally hangs out with his friends War, Famine and Pestilence, and later Ronnie, the Fifth Horseman who left before they became famous. Despite (or perhaps because of) his job, he is quite fond of life and a sure way to piss him off is to try to wipe it all out.
There are also many one-off books and characters.
The books have parodied
everything. Australia, Italy, Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Scotland, Japan and China, India, football, University, mythology, politics, religion, racism, war, sexism, justice, time travel, family, friendship, childhood, adulthood, stories, food, horror stories, sci-fi stories, and especially fantasy stories, among many other things, have all been deconstructed, played with, and generally messed around with. And in the end, they're always about people, and about the potential they have to fall so low- and rise so high.
The books are also the most ridiculously quotable things this side of
Doctor Who.
Maybe it's just a taste thing.
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