The Last Continent
Terry Pratchett
412 pages
published in 1998

The Last Continent is something of a milestone for me, as it was the last Discworld book I bought in paperback rather than hardback. It is also the last Discworld to star Rincewind and the last in the regular series that could be called frivolous. Ever since, the humour has taken a backseat to more serious matters. While there are still funny moments in the modern Discworld novels, the focus of them lies elsewhere. Whether you like that or not is down to personal taste. Myself, I quite like the more serious Discworld novels, but I do also fondly remember when they were little more than a series of jokes loosely joined together.

The Last Continent is something of a last hurrah for Rincewind, who after this would only appear in bit parts. He is stranded in the endless desert of EcksEcksEcksEcks, the last undiscovered (apart from the people who happened to live there) continent on the Discworld, a continent that just happens to look somewhat like Australia, but isn't actually Australia. Still, no worries, eh?

While Rincewind is off being lost on EcksEcksEcksEcks, the wizards at the Unseen University have a much more pressing problem. The Librarian, unique for his ability to stamp four books at a time, is ill. Years ago he was turned from a human into an orang-utan, (not, I hasten to add, any kind of monkey) and now he has gotten some sort of cold and is morphing further in all sort of weird shapes...

When the wizards go on asort of inadvert quest to find Rincewind and get him back to the university so they can get him to help cure the Librarian, things go from absurd to worse. While the wizards end up helping out Evolution (inadvertedly giving life to the duckbilled platypus), Rincewind has to fight his way through every sort of Australian cliche possible, from Rolf Harris to Mad Max and Priscella, Queen of the Desert. The endresult is a entertainingly enough romp with some very funny moments, but nothing that actually coheres into a first class Discworld novel.

This is not the worst Discworld novel ever, but it certainly isn't the best either. Fun enough if you like the series, but not something that would make you a fan.