The Last Continent

There's nothing more dangerous than a god with too much time on its hands.

What a brilliant statement. Honestly, Pratchett continues to wow me with this series. I came for the funny, but I'm staying for the intelligence.

Though, to be fair, the funny is still amazing. Witness several high muck-a-mucks from the Unseen Academy attempting to explain sex to a clueless god. Hilarious.

But it's the seemingly casually tossed-off observations that spur comments that, while also meant to be funny, are also deeply intelligent observations.

Absolutely love this series.

The Librarian of the Unseen University is suffering of a mysterious illness that causes him to periodically change shape. Worried about an imminent hole among the academic personnel (what respectable university lacks a library with a librarian?), the staff concoct a plan to spell him back to normal. The only snag: nobody aside Rincewind remembers the Librarian's actual name, a prerequisite for casting any spell on a person.

Alas, the University's worst wizard was not exactly on the premises at the time, busy exploring (i.e. surviving) the Last Continent: a place so remote that no one really knew its precise location. As the staff tries to find the continent, they accidentally travel back millions of years in time when said continent was show more still being built.

Long story short, it once again falls to Rincewind to save the day and undo his colleagues' ill-thought-out adventures. A prospect he's bound to regret, if past experience is anything to go by.

On the surface, this book was insanely well-researched and well-written. I mean with the amount of detail that went into crafting the various landscapes that Rincewind visits, not to mention the ironic take on evolution involving cake-bearing trees and bushes, was hands-down genius. And then God's workshop with all the half-built ancient mammals... absolute genius!

"Time here is," the kangaroo shrugged, "not the same. It was... glued together differently, right?"
"Search me," said Rincewind. "I'm a man sitting here listening to a kangaroo. I'm not arguing."
"I'm trying to find words you might understand," said the kangaroo.
"Good, keep going, you'll get there."

Unfortunately, as I progressed deeper into the story, my continued immersion started to become a lot of work. To be fair, I'm among the very first to disparage "light reading", gleefully slashing a star or two from their GR rating, but I'm also not here to learn stuff. Unless of course it is done organically, without the need for further study on my part. Reading is my escape therapy and I like to keep it that way; hence my loss of interest when serious effort starts to creep in.

Perhaps that's why I started feeling that the story took a backseat, and the author would just resort to info-dump through any unfortunate character that happened to catch his fancy at the time. Not that other books don't do this, but the whole veiled reference aspect make things easier to digest.

Score: 3.4/5 stars

My main gripe is that I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up with the author's many allusions, so much so that reading stopped being fun anymore. I'm sure there is an entire theory on how "proper reading" needs to be done, but as far as I'm concerned, unless it's a textbook, I shouldn't be putting in this much effort. Alternately, maybe I just need to visit Australia.

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Other stories featuring Rincewind the Wizard:
book 1:The Colour of Magic
book 2: The Light Fantastic
book 3: Sourcery
book 4: Eric
book 5: Interesting Times
book 7: The Last Hero show less

In this final installment of the Rincewind Saga, the poor fellow finds himself washed up on the blasted hellscape of XXXX. Forever running from poisonous snakes, spiders, plants, drop bears, jellyfish and a thousand other unknown terrors he bumps into a talking Kangaroo named Scrappy. Something is not right in Fourecks. It doesn't rain there and Rincewind has been charged with bringing back the wet before it's too late.

Meanwhile, the ever curious faculty of UU have bumbled their way through a mysterious hole and find themselves sucked back in time to the creation of the Last Continent. Consulting with the local creator god, they must work out a way to return home before they ruin the future forever.

A hilarious and deeply satisfying romp.

Despite the author's protestations that this isn't Australia in a thin disguise, I am back to confirm that this Last Continent is, indeed, Australia.

Even the God of Evolution basically came right out and said it. :)

Rincewind on another adventure, and this time it's in the outback, putting all his mad survival skills to the ultimate test, mate.

On a side note, the head staff of Unseen University seems to have misplaced themselves.

I can't quite tell whether I enjoyed Rincewind's ongoing adventures more than Ridcully's crew. Both were fun. But let's face it, this book is nothing but a bunch of Australian cliche jokes. Good enough for now and amusing for a moment, but I can't put this book on any "best of" Pratchett lists. I'd call this a show more placeholder Pratchett. Very good in general but nothing superior. :) show less

This is just punning good fun, mainly at the expense of the British stereotype of Australia, but good clean fun.
Another of Rincewind’s adventures, this time in Ecks, Ecks, Ecks, Ecks with Wizards from Unseen University also travelling down under, but travelling into the past. So there are two stories with familiar Discworld characters that you know are going to converge at some time, before the puns are exhausted.

And there’s plenty of beer.

In this final installment of the Rincewind Saga, the poor fellow finds himself washed up on the blasted hellscape of XXXX. Forever running from poisonous snakes, spiders, plants, drop bears, jellyfish and a thousand other unknown terrors he bumps into a talking Kangaroo named Scrappy. Something is not right in Fourecks. It doesn't rain there and Rincewind has been charged with bringing back the wet before it's too late.

Meanwhile, the ever curious faculty of UU have bumbled their way through a mysterious hole and find themselves sucked back in time to the creation of the Last Continent. Consulting with the local creator god, they must work out a way to return home before they ruin the future forever.

A hilarious and deeply satisfying romp.

"Ridcully was to management what King Herod was to the Bethlehem Playgroup Association. His mental approach to it could be visualised as a sort of business flowchart with, at the top, a circle entitled "Me, who does the telling" and, connected below it by a line, a large circle entitled "Everyone else"."