Approaching Discworld with trepidation

Back in the primeval days of the internet, a guy with whom I was chatting in a chatroom (chatroom!  do they even still exist?) asked if I was a fan of the Discworld books.  "The what?" I asked.  Consumed with pity, he insisted that I read one that he recommended, which I did although I don't recall its title.

I'm not sure what I was expecting.  Some sort of science fiction or fantasy, obviously, but of what sort?  I was amazed and amused -- but not totally converted into the sort of fan who would insist that strangers read the books.  As I recall, Pratchett's world is not a somber world of great events, such as that conceived and written by Tolkien.   It is more like the hilariously confusing muddle of Douglas Adams's novel, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

After reading the recommended book, I then more or less forgot about Discworld, until a month or so ago.  I've belonged for decades to a British book club that brings out books of every sort -- mainly English classics -- in fine (but not lavish) editions.  Their most recent prospectus included an edition of Mort, one of the Discworld books.  I read the blurb, and decided it was worth a try.  The book arrived yesterday.

Discworld was the creation of recently-deceased author Terry Pratchett.  By Wikipedia's count, there are 41 books in the series.  The books are not sequential, as I understand it; each is a separate story but each is set in the same Discworld of Pratchett's imagination.

Discworld is a flatland fantasy.  Being flat, not spherical, the world has borders.  I think it gives you a flavor of the series if I say that the flat disc is balanced on the back of four elephants, which in turn stand upon a giant turtle.  I suspect -- but do not recall for a fact -- that the elephants and turtle have a sort of metaphysical, quasi-Hindu reality, but are not involved in the lives of Discworld inhabitants, human beings who are confined to the surface of the disc itself.*

Anyway, Mort arrived today, and I read the introduction.  The book is a story about Death, the human personification of death represented as a skeleton with a scythe.  But having been brought into physical existence by the human imagination, Death goes beyond his grisly duties and has hopes, interests, and dreams of his own.

The binding is beautiful, as is the somewhat macabre artwork designed especially for this edition.  But in my present state of awareness, I feel unworthy to tackle its reading.  Instead, I plan to broaden my background by downloading onto Kindle the earliest-written of the Discworld books -- The Colour of Magic.  Having first mastered what presumably were Pratchett's earliest thoughts concerning his newly-crafted world, I may feel competent to leap ahead to Mort (the fourth of the series).

Further reports as events warrant.
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*(7-2-16) Actually, after reading the Prologue to The Colour of Magic, I learn that resourceful investigators in the Discworld kingdom of Krull at one time built "a gantry and pulley arrangement" over the edge of Discworld's rim. (In some ways, I imagine, similar to the platform that entrepreneurs have built out over the rim of the Grand Canyon.) They were able, like scientists who send probes to Jupiter and Saturn, "to bring back much information about the shape and nature of A'Tuin [the turtle] and the elephants."
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(7-4-16) To my embarrassment, I find that not only are the elephants and turtle real and physical -- neither metaphysical nor mythical -- but that the last fourth of The Colour of Magic , the very first book of the saga, leads to the protagonist's plunging off the rim of Discworld, past the aforesaid all-too-real creatures and into the unfathomable void of space/time. The moral -- never pretend to understand a story before you read it.