Interesting Times
A Discworld Novel
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4.5 • 116 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“Discworld is more complicated and satisfactory than Oz . . . has the energy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the inventiveness of Alice in Wonderland . . . brilliant.” —A. S. Byatt
When war, magic, politics, and one deliciously inept wizard collide, zany mayhem ensues in this delightful satire in Sir Terry Pratchett’s internationally bestselling Discworld series.
To the fine denizens of Discworld, the phrase “May you live in interesting times” is a curse. No one wishes to hear those words, especially not Rincewind. The distinctly unmagical sorcerer has barely survived more than a few “interesting times” and he isn’t looking to experience any more. But when a request for a “Great Wizzard” arrives in Ankh-Morpork via carrier albatross from the faraway Counterweight Continent, Rincewind is named emissary.
The Agatean Empire’s current ruler is on the brink of downfall, and chaos is all but certain to arise in the wake. For some incomprehensible reason, someone believes Rincewind will have a mythic role in the war and the ensuing bloodletting. Cohen the Barbarian and his extremely elderly Silver Horde are already hard at work planning for the looting and pillaging.
Anyone can be a hero, but there’s only one Rincewind—and he believes he owes it to the world to keep that one alive for as long as possible.
The Discworld novels can be read in any order but Interesting Times is the fifth installment in the Wizards collection (and the 18th Discworld book). The other books in the Wizards collection include:
The Color of MagicThe Light FantasticSourceryEricThe Last ContinentUnseen Academicals
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.
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