Since the first volume of Discworld wasn’t available on Amazon, I finally ordered this one, not realizing it was a tiny 200-page book printed in big type and destined to teach high -schoolers how to read, baiting them with aliens and video games. Yet I should have guessed from the summary.

Anyway, you recognize the Good Omens style much more here (you’d believe Neil Gaiman didn’t contribute anything to the book, past the original story). It’s funny, pleasant, there’s a moral (killing for real is no joke) and it’s light and fast read, which is quite enjoyable after I finished a Maurice Dantec book.

Meanwhile, I found out that by removing the “u” in “The Colour of Magic” I could tap the US inventories and get into Discworld pretty soon. I had forgotten that American publishers were forced to edit those britishisms for fear of widespread complaints that they’d be so sloppy as not to fix huge spelling mistakes in the book’s effing title. (And I just spent ten minutes trying to rewrite the last sentence in a less awkward way, but it’s almost seven in the morning, so I’ll just forget about it instead.)