Well, I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected and certainly a lot more than The Colour of Magic. It felt like things had fallen into place a little more. Rincewind and Twoflower felt a bit more well rounded and their relationship was more nuanced than in The Colour of Magic. The plot also trotted along at a good pace and the addition of the red star heading for the discworld made it quite exciting.

Other characters seemed a bit more like themselves as well. There is a scene where Twoflower tries to teach the four horsemen of the apocalypse to play Bridge and Death is utterly confused and fascinated which seems like the start of his attitude to humans in the rest of the series.

I’d forgotten that this was our first meeting with Cohen The Barbarian. At the beginning he is without his diamond teeth which forms a nice comic disparity between Cohen the tough guy and Cohen the old man. Twoflower, of course, is in awe of him. Others often underestimate Cohen although they soon come to regret that. In the course of The Light Fantastic, having travelled through time and space on the back of the luggage, he bursts through the teeth of a just awakened troll. Taking these diamonds and Twoflower’s idea of dentures, he fashions his diamond teeth.

We also meet the Librarian although he is not quite the character that he becomes in the later novels. In fact, he is just a note in the background music of the Unseen University, a passing piece of comedy. But then the other wizards are similarly underdrawn. In the later novels, the wizards are more static, Ridcully is arch-chancellor for a long time. I’d forgotten that he wasn’t always arch-chancellor. There is more comedic value in familiarity, I think, so I’m glad that Pratchett made the decision to keep things more static.

There is more social commentary than in The Colour of Magic. There are the sects of people who spring up with the advances of the star who want to rid the world of magic and are not afraid to use violence to do it. There is Ymper Trymon, a wizard who places organisation above all else. He is a great villain who is convinced that the world should follow a certain order and would like to fit people neatly into that order. He meets a suitably gruesome end which was very satisfying.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this but it was still not as good as some of the later novels.