Interesting Times
(Discworld Novel 17)
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4.5 • 15 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Discover the gloriously inventive and funny fantasy novel from bestselling author Terry Pratchett, the fifth book in the Wizards series, part of the Discworld novels.
'Pratchett is a comic genius' Daily Express
‘A brilliant book by the master of the fantasy genre’ 5-star reader review
'There is a curse. They say: may you live in interesting times . . .'
This is the worst thing you can wish on a citizen of Discworld.
Especially for the magically challenged Rincewind, who has already had far too much excitement in his life. Unfortunately, the unlucky wizard always seems to end up in the middle of, well, absolutely everything.
So, when a request for a 'Great Wizzard' arrives from the faraway Counterweight Continent, it's obviously Rincewind who's sent. For one thing, he's the only one who spells wizard that way.
Once again Rincewind is thrown headfirst into a dangerous adventure. For the oldest empire on the Disc is in turmoil and Chaos is building.
And, for some reason, someone believes Rincewind will have a vital role in the coming war . . .
Interesting Times is the fifth book in the Wizards series, but you can read the Discworld novels in any order.
Praise for the Discworld series:
'[Pratchett’s] spectacular inventiveness makes the Discworld series one of the perennial joys of modern fiction' Mail on Sunday
‘Pratchett is a master storyteller’ Guardian
'One of our greatest fantasists, and beyond a doubt the funniest' George R.R. Martin
'One of those rare writers who appeals to everyone’ Daily Express
‘One of the most consistently funny writers around’ Ben Aaronovitch
‘Masterful and brilliant’ Fantasy & Science Fiction
‘Pratchett uses his other world to hold up a distorting mirror to our own… he is a satirist of enormous talent ... incredibly funny ... compulsively readable' The Times
‘The best humorous English author since P.G. Wodehouse' The Sunday Telegraph
‘Nothing short of magical’ Chicago Tribune
'Consistently funny, consistently clever and consistently surprising in its twists and turns' SFX
‘[Discworld is] compulsively readable, fantastically inventive, surprisingly serious exploration in story form of just about any aspect of our world…There's never been anything quite like it’ Evening Standard
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Discworld continues to spin merrily along in this new addition to Pratchett's successful series (begun with The Colour of Magic, 1983) about a magical world carried through space on the back of a giant turtle. Here, Rincewind the wizard is drafted to visit the Agatean Empire, which in Pratchett's hands is either a satire of Imperial China or a satire on how that China is handled by other fantasy writers, or possibly both (in Discworld there are few certainties). Arriving complete with the Luggage, Rincewind is dropped into the middle of a succession crisis that's complicated by the presence of Cohen the Barbarian, with his Silver Horde of superannuated barbarians, and a band of youthful revolutionaries, the Red Army. The plot that slowly emerges sees Cohen become Emperor and will hold Discworld fans' attention despite some of the satirical effects arising from a working knowledge of British popular culture. Pratchett is an acquired taste, but the acquisition seems easy, judging from the robust popularity of Discworld. Certainly there is more verbal elegance in this novel than in most humorous fantasy. Pratchett does try to satirize so many subjects at once here that he resembles the man who jumped on his horse and rode off in all directions, and so the book benefits from being read in small, bracing doses.
