Release order on first experience is the only way guaranteed to not create unnecessary confusion. Works in a continuity that are released after each other tend rely upon prior knowledge of the work to accentuate the experience. Inventing a new angle to experience them through may be valuable as an artistic exercise, but it is very clearly a bad idea to recommend that angle to newcomers. Release order is specifically reliable because it tracks either the creative process/development of ideas in cases of straightforward serialization, or in case of intentionality in release order follows author intent.
The only time a bespoke work order is even debatable is in cases of an adaptation of a work that is not adapted in release order of the original work. Even then, that adaptation may work around that in a way where it makes it, too, confusing to experience outside of its own release order.
Now try this for Terry Prachett books lol
Release order is incredibly rewarding because you see the little in-jokes and back-references as they’re cropping up in canon.
Came in here to talk about Discworld. I generally agree with OP but for Discworld I usually recommend one of the standalones first because it’s a good way to get a feel for his writing and to see if you like it, whereas Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic are quite different from the other ones since he hadn’t really gotten into stride yet. Also depending on the person I usually recommend one I think they’ll like because it’s about something I know they enjoy. But I would never try to prescribe a whole reading order, that’s insane
If you don’t love Pratchett at his “parodying Anne McCaffrey for 37 pages,” you don’t deserve him at his “doing extremely problematic fantasy racism with a troll named goddamned fucking Coalface whose ‘characterization’ sounds like a straight-up 4chan meme”
Paragraph 4, and CW should be obvious:
https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Constable_Coalface
The City Watch series is a land of contrasts
Wow, how did I not get this?
Because we’re so accustomed to racist cop dramas that it didn’t strike anyone as out-of-place in a fantasy comedy series?
I always recommend Guards! Guards! first because it introduces characters that reoccur throughout most of the other books and is itself the start the Vimes mini-series within the series.
I’d avoid basing the reading order on the story arcs for most part, it’s more fun to randomly run into known characters again. Other than that, it’s difficult to mess up. I’d consider the Nomes as a start too. For the Nomes I’d read the books in order and consecutive.