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But it also makes sense to a) let people start with books they'll enjoy that will hook them in, and b) let people avoid books they don't like. So, I agree that chronological order makes most sense IN GENERAL. Because TCOM is ENTIRELY different from later books. Or they're going to read The Colour of Magic and then give up.

Don't worry, after reading the first ten novels, you'll get to ones you might enjoy - and by the way, the ones you'll be reading first have zero stylistic continuity with, and very little shared setting with, the ones you'll be reading later on", then people aren't going to read any of them. More importantly: if you tell people "you have to read this series from the beginning. You exaggerate massively the effect of reading out-of-order - all you'd miss is the occasional mostly-self-explanatory in-joke.

I think it's ludicrous to insist on chronological order - and even more ludicrous to actively discourage people from reading Pratchett by yelling at them and haranguing them if they don't read it the way YOU want them to. Most important thing is, NOT reading Pratchett, ANY of it, would certainly be wrong, wrong, WRONG! (Remember Terry Gilliam's cartoon with the big hammer? -)) That said, I think it's a bit of a mistake to focus too much on characters alone, in Pratchett's work, I don't think the best characters are Vimes, the Witches, Rincewind or anyone else, the main protagonist and "best character" here is the Discworld itself, and a good idea for starters is probably to get acquainted with said environment first, where the best choice would probably be, a view shared by many, to start with one of the "one-shot" books rather than any of the sub-series, and again there seems to be some agreement on "Small Gods" being among the best choices, I'd also add "Thief of Time" as another good candidate. To me, approaching a serialised work, where characters and situations develop within a continuity in chronological order makes plain sense but, as Pratchett himself teaches us in his little moral tales, while all people (and all "creatures", indeed :-)) were created equal, we weren't created all the same, thank goodness, and if that approach doesn't work for some, so be it, I'd rather have people (or creatures :-)) jump right in the middle than have them put off reading Pratchett at all and never know what they'd be missing. Blimey, Wolfie, that's a VERY passionate defence of the chronological approach to the Discworld universe, a view I entirely share, indeed, but it came out a tad "imposing", perhaps, don't you think?