The Last Continent

It's funny how the character that started the series remains my least favorite recurring figure in Pratchett's Discworld books. Rincewind is a one note character whose perpetual cowardice wears a bit more each time he appears. While "Running away, keeps him alive," it also is unbearably predictable. Another difficulty with this one is that the too obvious Australia references read like a Monty Python skit that has gone on for far too long. This one's a throwaway in the series, for every good laugh there's about 50 pages of plodding along. There is an interesting Pratchett take on evolution and creation that brighten things up temporarily, but this pleasure is buried amidst what is easily one of my least favorite books in the series. It's rare that Pratchett writes one with little to recommend it, but The Last Continent fits that description all too well.

I fail to see the point of reviewing Discoworld book, especially one that comes this late in the series. By now, you are a hardcore fan, or you just didn't like Pratchett's style.

For my part, I can say that I adored Discworld from the moment that I have read Color of Magic, though it is not my favorite book in the series. Then again, I never grew fond of Rincewind, much more to my liking were numerous side characters that were so jovial and so life-like that you just had to love them.

So that being said I'll just fly shortly over this book.

Last Continent is divided in two parts. The very poor one, staring Rincewind and Luggage finding themselves on a strange continent that resembles Australia, is variation on a theme already exploited in Witches Abroad in a way that surpasses this one immensely. Second part (as often is the case in Discworld, these two parts do not follow one another, rather they make "intercourse") stars Unseen University staff including Archchancellor, Dean, Librarian, Ponder Stibbon, some other that I cannot remember right now, and most importantly Mrs Whitlow, cleaning lady.

This second part keeps entire novel entertaining enough and on a very high satiric level combined with sharp intelligence, something that Pratchett's very good at. And all began when wizards tried to restore Librarian back to it's normal shape...You can possibly visualise what kind of trouble this caused.

But as I have said, if you don't know already who are the characters that I mentiond here, you should probably avoid this book and if you are interested in Discworld you should consider starting from the beginning of the series. For the rest of you out there, this is, though for moments hillarious, rather dull, long, and less than average Discworld book.

At last!

Finally a plausible explanation for so many mysterious phenomena we've all pondered with futility:

Have you ever wondered how God ever arrived at sex as a means of creatures reproducing themselves? The answer's here in this book.

Have you ever wondered what the duckbill platypus? Yeah. What the duckbill platypus? Well, the answer's not precisely here, but if you wondered why, instead, you'll be fulfilled.

Kangaroos? Why budgies say the thing about pretty boys?

What it is that's missing in Oz, and why?

You'll get it all here in this, the best, the most amusing book yet by Terry Pratchett.

Unfortunately, you mustn't read it until you've read all the other Rincewind sequence books.

Then you can reward yourself with a laugh on every page and a newly found metaphysical awareness.

A handshake and friendly, "Howdy!" with god.

I was happy to see the wizards back in action in this always entertaining Discworld series. I have always thought the wizards (along with the witches) are among the funniest characters. Pratchett has crafted an interesting story set in the land-down-under, a story about gods and creation and the blending of past and present, as Rincewind tries to save the continent from a massive drought. As usual, Rincewind falls into things (literally and figuratively), but despite the familiar Rincewind antics, Pratchett keeps this novel fresh and, as with all of his books, sharply satirical. There are so many one line zingers I am sure I missed some, but I found his commentary on university life to be exceptionally funny. I do not think this is a good place to start into the Discworld novels, but for Pratchett fans, you don't want to miss it.

Quick - what do you know about Australia?

I reckon if you live in Australia, you probably know quite a lot. If you've known someone from Australia or perhaps have visited there, you might know a few things. If your experience is limited to a few "Crocodile Dundee" movies and the Crocodile Hunter, then you could probably stand to know a little more. No matter what your level of Australiana is, though, you probably know at least enough to get a lot of enjoyment out of this book, Terry Pratchett's homage to the strangest continent on Earth.

Now keep in mind, Pratchett does state quite clearly that this is not a book about Australia. "It's about somewhere entirely different which happens to be, here and there, a bit... Australian." So that's okay then.

Really, this is Pratchett's homage to Australia, a country that he clearly likes a lot. In reality, Australia is a pretty strange place. It's a giant island, most of which is barren desert. It's been disconnected from the other continents for so long that evolution has given us species unlike any others on Earth. Pretty much anything that you come across, from the lowliest spider to the cutest jellyfish to the weirdest platypus, is deadly. The country is a tribute to Nature, both in its beauty and its danger, and really deserves more attention than it gets.

In one memorable scene, Death asks his Library for a complete list of dangerous animals on the continent known as XXXX, aka Fourecks. He is immediately buried under books, including Dangerous Mammals, Reptiles, Amphibians, Birds, Fish, Jellyfish, Insects, Spiders, Crustaceans, Grasses, Trees, Mosses and Lichens of Terror Incognita, volume 29c, part three. A slight exaggeration? Perhaps. He then asks for a complete list of species that are not deadly, and gets a small leaflet on which is written, "Some of the sheep."

This book isn't about Death, though, as much fun as that may be. This is about the worst wizard on the Disc. The classic inadvertent hero, who had seen so much of the world but only as a blur while he ran from danger. The hero who truly just wants to be left alone, perhaps with a potato - Rincewind.

What you most need to know about Rincewind is that he absolutely does not want to be a hero. He craves a boring life, one in which the most he has to worry about is whether to have his potatoes baked, mashed, or deep fried. He does not want to be chased by mad highwaymen, put in prison for sheep theft, or required to completely change the climate of an entire continent. He doesn't want to time travel, be guided by strange, otherworldly kangaroos or fall in with a troupe of suspiciously masculine female performers. He just wants peace and quiet.

The universe, of course, has other ideas. And so it is up to Rincewind to once again save the day. The continent of Fourecks has never seen rain - in fact, they think the very idea of water that falls from the sky is ludicrous. But there are legends of what they call The Wet - the day when water will be found on the surface of the ground, rather than hundreds of feet below it. And while they don't know how it will happen exactly, they do know it will happen. Lucky for Rincewind, the universe has chosen him to make sure that it does.

I really can't list all of the Australia references because there are just too many. From drop bears to Vegemite, Mad Max to Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, they're pretty much all there.

This book is, like so many other Discworld, books, a lot of fun to read. One of the more interesting sections in the book is one that's not strictly necessary. Exploring a strange window in the University which, for some reason, leads to a beach, the Wizards of the Unseen University find themselves marooned thousands of miles away and thousands of years back in time. On this weird little island, they meet one of the most unusual gods on the Disc - the god of evolution.

This god isn't interested in the normal godly things - lolling about and being worshiped, occasionally smiting a few followers here and there. As Pratchett puts it, "It is a general test of the omnipotence of a god that they can see the fall of a tiny bird. But only one god makes notes, and a few adjustments, so that next time it can fall further and faster." This god of evolution is devoted to making life forms better, often one at a time, and lives on a strange little island where there's only one of everything, but everything yearns to be useful. With him, the wizards are able to explore evolution and natural selection and figure out why sex is just so darn useful.

I say that this section isn't strictly necessary because it just isn't. It's certainly interesting, and I suppose the god's island is a nice echo of the real Australia, where evolution has had a long time to tinker and come up with some really weird stuff, but in terms of the story, it's not all that important a plot point. In fact, the wizards in general don't contribute much to the story other than to make it longer and funnier. Their exploration of evolution and Rincewind's unwilling quest to bring rain to the barren land of Fourecks are almost wholly unrelated to each other, up until the very end.

This isn't to say that they're unwelcome - I love watching the wizards explore the world. The combination of personalities whenever all the wizards get together is one that offers endless hours of reading fun, and I think that without them, the book would have been less enjoyable. They're just not essential to the plot, is all, and if that kind of thing is important to you, then you might not enjoy this book so much.

Me, I love science and I love Discworld. While the actual Science of Discworld series was kind of dry and boring in the end, I love it when Pratchett explores real-world science through the eyes of his Discworld characters. By looking at science from another perspective, he is able to make it perhaps a little more understandable to people who otherwise might write science off as "too hard."

This book is a trip through time and space and Australia. It's a long, strange trip, to be sure, but an entertaining one.

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"It's not many times in your life you get the chance to die of hunger on some bleak continent some thousands of years before you're born. We should make the most of it."
- The Dean
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This is the eleventh or twelvth Pratchett book I've read, and it is by far the worst. That's somewhat misleading, though, because it's the only bad Pratchett book I've read at all.

I'm not australian, but I did catch on to many of the australian references. The problem was that most of them weren't funny. Pratchett's humor has always lain with the insight and subtlety with which he makes his cultural references and satire tie into the situation at hand. However, in The Last Continent, there is no "situation at hand". The story rambles on and on, seemingly without point. People and things come and go without notice or reason, often simply to fit the motif of australian references. The story of the wizards and the story of Rincewind don't converge until the very last pages of the book, and the convergence is not even explained (how rincewind knows to find the cave and then to draw in it). The reason for Rincewind's problem is not explained at any stage (why the librarian changes shape, why the wizards' presence in the past is causing the present to shift at random, why it doesn't rain, etc).

The humor that does exist in the book is shallow in nearly every case. Often it's just inane bickering between the wizards, which elicits cheap laughs, but doesn't grab one's attention. The humor isn't structured at all, which is Pratchett's normal approach. In his other books, the humor develops around some reference. Here they are mostly just one liners. In The Last Continent, the only time this kind of humor develops is on the topic the wizards' sexual repression, which is entirely unrelated to the story's problem.

I strongly recommend other Pratchett books such as Jingo, Small Gods, or Reaper Man for a much more sophisticated example of fantasy satire.

I found this Discworld just as amusing as all the other early ones, but also annoying. Just like the notorious Simpsons episode set in Australia, this book confirms the lame old stereotype of Australians as beer-swigging bushies, shearers and hicks living in a big-ass dry desert. While it's true that some parts of the country are vaguely similar, it's very depressing how foreigners such as Pratchett lack the imagination to look further than that. With silly portrayals such as this on the market, it's no wonder that no-one takes my home country seriously. Pratchett, normally so wise and nonconformist, comes off as just another naive tourist with no real understanding of the country he's visiting. He does us a disservice by reinforcing the old G'day Mate cliches. The parts involving the God of Evolution were excellent, but the parts set on XXXX (a brand of beer in Queensland- how twee!) were just plain stupid.

There is something gravely amiss with the time-space continuum of the Discworld. Rincewind, our faithful anti-hero who has unknowingly rescued the multiverse from several terminal and quite annoying endings, is stuck in a desolate desert somewhere in a country called EcksEcksEcksEcks. Just a few moments ago he was still hanging around the Island of Agatea, but due to some last minute luck was teleported to his current torment. At least he now has no need to run away from sharp objects and his only concern is to find the next waterhole. No worries. Only, when was the last time you he had a decent conversation with a Kangaroo? But help is on the way: the elite corps of the Unseen University, lead by Archchancellor Ridcully, is on a mission to rescue their lost son. And they are very close. Only one slight detail went wrong: they missed their target by about 300000 years.

In The Last Continent Terry Pratchett has a go at Australia and its strange peculiarities. The result is, as can be expected, a very humorous view on kangaroos, aborigines and corks on strings. But the book offers more than a never-ending flow of Crocodile Dundee puns, it also gives a quite interesting view on time travel and the potential danger of treading on ants that might influence your future in the past. The introduction of the university's housekeeper, Mrs. Whitlow, leads to an avalanche of in between sheets jokes. But the absolute hilarious episodes of the book start when Rincewind meets the Discworld version of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. I never expected that leather and high heels were that popular in the Discworld.

What might confuse the readers is the story line. Great effort is put in setting the plot and getting the protagonists into the strangest situations, but when the denouement is explained the narrative speed is increased. With sometimes only a single line the solution to a certain predicament is given. Only by rereading part of the book I managed to get a more consistent view on the story. Even then I am not sure that I followed Terry's train of thought fully.

Nevertheless the tongue-in-cheek approach of Terry never fails to deliver on an enjoyable read.

After almost 20,000 books in the Discworld series, Terry Pratchett unaccountably continues his original, funny-bone writing style. Many authors "peter out" after the third or fourth novel - not Terry! Somehow he keeps churning out fresh ideas, fresh material, fresh humor - all while keeping the customer enamored with familiar characters and storylines. While some of the later books may seem daunting to new readers unfamiliar with our loveable Luggage or the invincible Rincewind, I for one will never give up my addiction to the Discworld so long as Terry keeps on with his terrific work.

I'm sure I never picked up on some of the more subtle down under references, being Hawaiian, but I got enough to thoroughly enjoy this one. Sir Terry must have gone there and done some thorough researching.
This is the lightest, most comedic of his Discworlds. There's plenty of laughs to be had here. Here's an example:
"And that jungle," said the Senior Wrangler, sniffing, "Looks pretty damn dangerous to me. Could be anything in it. Fatal. Could be tigers and gorillas and elephants and pineapples. I wouldn't go near it. I'm with you, archchancellor. Better to freeze here than look some rabid man-eater in the eye."
Ridcully's own eyes were burning bright. He stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Tigers, eh?" he said. Then his expression changed. "PINEAPPLES?"
"Deadly," said the Senior Wrangler firmly. "One of them got my aunt. We couldn't get it off her. I TOLD her that's not the way to eat them, but would she listen?"
~from "The Last Continent" page 54 by Sir Terry Pratchett
I gave this one four stars. Recommended. Enjoy.