The Last Continent: A Novel of Discworld - Softcover

Pratchett, Terry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061059072 ISBN 13: 9780061059070

Publisher: Harper Torch, 2000

Synopsis

When a professor at Unseen University disappears and the school's librarian turns into an ape, a search party travels to the far reaches of Discworld to uncover the mystery and to find Ricewind, who is currently stranded on the unfinished down-under continent of Fourecks. Reissue.

About this title

Review

Terry Pratchett's 22nd Discworld novel, The Last Continent, is a lighthearted tour of the fantasy land of Fourecks, a very Australian sort of place, with brief courses in theoretical physics and evolution thrown in for good measure. Pratchett returns to his first Discworld protagonist, the inept and cowardly wizard Rincewind, who habitually runs into trouble as fast as he flees. Rincewind's arrival in Fourecks has distorted the space-time continuum, and he has to sort it out before the whole place dries up and blows away. The situation is complicated because the actual problem is located 30,000 years in the past--just where the Faculty of the Unseen University currently are. Pretty frightening, given "the true wizard's instinct to amble aimlessly into dangerous places," and then "stop and argue ... about exactly what kind of danger it [is]."

If you're baffled by all this, no worries, mate. You needn't have read Pratchett before--not even the five previous Discworld novels starring Rincewind (The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Sourcery, Eric, and Interesting Times)--to enjoy this latest romp. Nor to have visited Australia. When you finish, however, you'll likely want to rush out and do both. --Nona Vero

Review

"Pratchett's humour takes logic past the point of absurdity and round again, but it is his unexpected insights into the human morality that make the Discworld series stand out" (Times Literary Supplement)

"Delightful... gleeful and downright mischevious. The pleasures on the page are so quirkily seductive. Puts one in mind of one of the greatest comic writers of them all PG Wodehouse" (Sunday Telegraph)

"A minor masterpiece. I laughed so much I fell from my armchair" (Time Out)

"The humour sparkles as brightly as ever" (The Times)

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Torch
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061059072
• ISBN 13: 9780061059070
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 390