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LAST CONTINENT, THE
by Terry Pratchett
Harper, February 2000
390 pages
$6.99
ISBN: 0061059072


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Terry Pratchett is one of the few authors whose work I scramble to buy when it is still only in hardcover. At $35 it could be seen as expensive (and of course, if the $A continues its downward crawl, it will become even more pricey). At present Pratchett's work may be found in the science fiction section of your local bookstore. He is not (yet) in the Litracha section. Still, I suppose Jonathan Swift would, in his day, have had Gulliver's Travels confined to the Fantasy section, if there was such a genre in those bygone times..

Until Pratchett wrote the first of his Discworld novels The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic he was seen solely as a children's writer. His first Discworld books poked only mild fun at the world: tourism and science primarily. Who can forget his iconograph, the Discworld equivalent of a camera, in which a little demon sits painting furiously until he completes a representation of the outside world? We first met Two Flowers the Tourist's Luggage, later generously bequeathed to a terrified Rincewind, in the first of the Discworld books. Just what the Luggage ( now opalised and coyly known as 'Trunkie' in The Last Continent) is meant to satirise I am not sure, unless Mr. Pratchett has ever observed my method of packing.

In the first few Discworld books there was no evidence at all of off-colour humour: it was all Simon pure (who WAS this unlikely Simon?).As time has progressed a little colour has been observed to tinge Simon's formerly alabaster cheeks.

Discworld is. as evidenced by its name, a flat disc perched atop four elephants which, in turn, stand at the edges of the shell of a giant turtle, the Great A'Tuin. The events taking place on the Discworld are somehow distorted (ever so slightly) reflections of what occurs on our traditionally spherical world.

Since the inception of Discworld, Pratchett has mocked Hollywood, feminism, universities, the army, the police, religion (one of my favourites is Small Gods ), Death, fairies and (as they say) much, much more. Now it is the turn of Australia, although there is a disclaimer from the publishers on the jacket of the book, announcing that 'Terry Pratchett would like it to be known that The Last Continent is not a book about Australia. It's just vaguely australian' (sic).

Briefly, the Unseen University (home of the wizards who educate promising students - all male - in Magic) has a bigger problem than usual. Its Librarian has spent countless years in the form of an orang-utan (it was the leakage from the rampaging books of magic that transformed him from human seeming). Now his morphic field as well as his temporal lobe, has been damaged and every time he sneezes he is transformed into something else. The faculty of UU realises something has to be done about this dreadful state of affairs since, without their ultra-efficient Librarian who knows what will happen to their Library and its vast store of esoteric knowledge? One suggestion is that Rincewind, rogue and inept wizard (or Wizzard, as his pointy hat proclaims) knows the Librarian's True Name, knowledge of which might be able to help effect a cure.

The faculty - Archchancellor Ridcully, Dean, Senior Wrangler, Chair of Indefinite Studies, Lecturer in Recent Runes, Ponder Stibbons (the youngest and most easily ignored, but most scientifically minded member of the Faculty) and the Bursar - decide they must attempt to cure the Librarian. Inadvertently they travel to a beach which is located ten thousand years in the past. Mrs. Witlow, the University's housekeeper, follows them to the sunny island , but moves the wood keeping ajar the window linking them to the present. The wood has been clearly labeled 'Do not remove this wood. Not even to see what happens. IMPORTANT!' Thus the wizards (together with Mrs. Witlow) are stranded in the past, and Pratchett has a lovely time getting them to discuss some of the paradoxes indulged in by contemporary science fiction authors.

Rincewind, by a strange Discworld coincidence, is vaguely mislaid on the Last Continent of EcksEcksEcksEcks (Fourecks for short) where he is introduced to many arcane mysteries. He discovers that the locals know nothing about rain ... indeed, it is seen as highly improbable and were it to exist it would be downright dangerous! Everyone knows that water comes from underground.

The inept 'wizzard' has been shown how to survive on local food - strange twisted roots and crawly things that are found under rocks which, when cooked, taste exactly like chicken. - by black people living on the continent. Then he is shown how to find the True Bush Tucker. He only has to look under rocks and behind bushes to find, for example, chicken sandwiches that taste like, of all things, chicken as well as unearthing - er, undiscworlding - a sponge delight coated with chocolate icing and dusted lightly with coconut flakes, as dessert. After all, he is told, he has to be kept fit and healthy for his quest to rescue the Unseen University's most illustrious members from the past. Not quite the sort of adventure on which Rincewind delights to embark. Rincewind never delights in embarking on any kind of adventure. Therefore Rincewind runs!

Rincewind, throughout his sporadic and peripatetic existence on the Discworld , has preserved his life (Death now only makes social visits to him, speaking, as always, in small upper case) by running. Very fast. He needs to do this constantly throughout this book. During his many escapes he becomes the swagman of Waltzing Matilda fame, invents Vegemite, hides in the Opera House (which reminds him of an open tissue box) is presented with a Pie Floater (Good Gods! Could Pratchett possibly be poking fun at Adelaide's own Gourmet Delight?), is responsible for the first Peach Nellie, encounters Discworld's equivalent of Priscilla Queen of the Desert and the Gay Mardigras (without realising that the magnificent large women with big feet and hands might not be female) and finally introduces rain to the long drought-stricken Last Continent.

The Faculty, in their attempts first, to return to Ankh-Morpok, but when they realise they are trapped in the past, to regain the present, meet their share of oddities. They encounter the god of Evolution, in whom Ponder Stibbons takes an inordinate interest and with whom even considers taking up an apprenticeship. And could it be that the wizards arguing in a highly charged magical field, are responsible for the creation of the duck billed platypus?

Mention of Terry Pratchett's work would not be complete without a reference to Josh Kirby's art. Kirby, in his delightfully manic depictions somehow manages to encapsulate almost all the action of Pratchett's novels - no mean feat considering the amount of that action - on the dust jackets far more successfully than any written blurb. I wish I had some of his original art-work to hang on my walls!

I have read American reviews of Pratchett's work which are disparaging in the extreme. Well, Americans do have a Ýdifferent sense of humour, do they not? For that matter, a True American would have to ridicule a book written without any chapters. For my part, and on behalf of his very many loyal Australian fans, I can only urge Pratchett to continue his relating of the History of the Discworld. Lots of it. Soon.

Editor¼s Note: This review is based on the Australian edition published by Doubleday in 1998

Reviewed by Denise Wels, July 1998

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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