The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett

Something is amiss at Unseen Unversity, Ankh-Morpork's most prestigious (i.e., only) institution of higher learning. A professor is missing—but a search party is on the way! A bevy of senior wizards will follow the trail wherever it leads—even to the other side of Discworld, where the Last Continent, Fourecks, is under construction. Imagine a magical land where rain is but a myth and the ordinary is strange and the past and present run side by side. experience the terror as you encounter a Mad Dwarf, the Peach Butt, and the dreaded Meat Pie Floater.Feel the passion as the denizens of the Last Continent learn what happens when rain falls and the rivers fill with water (it spoils regattas, for one thing). Thrill to the promise of next year's regatta, in remote, rustic Didjabringabeeralong. It'll be asolutely gujeroo (no worries).

Much to my surprise, this ended up being my favorite of the Rincewind subseries of Discworld.

First of all, it's funny. Yes, Discworld always contains a lot of humor, but with The Last Continent there were times I had to stop to calm down and wipe the tears out of my eyes before I could even think about continuing to read.

The main plot admittedly wasn't spectacular; no real conflict other than the usual universe forcing Rincewind, our favorite beleaguered wizard, to solve its problems. There was no particular villain other than drought or nature itself. But Pratchett explores ideas like evolution and causality in an entertaining way. This is all against the background of wacky time travel and goofy deity hijinks.

The b-plot with the Unseen University Wizards was very engaging. Ponder is the central focus and he has to put his youth and curiosity against the experience and obstinacy of the older wizards as they travel through a weirdly and swiftly evolving island. I always love scenes of absurd Wizard dialogue.

Ponder sighed. “I wasn't questioning your authority, Archchancellor, “ he said. “I just feel that if a huge monster evolves into a chicken right in front of you, the considered response should not be to eat the chicken.”The Archchancellor licked his fingers. “What would you have done, then?” he said. “Well...studied it,” said Ponder. “So did we. Postmortem examination,” said the Dean.

Due to some temporary temporal mix up, young Ponder experiences old age and the old wizards become young. The empathy they experience toward their opposite age “demographic” doesn't last very long, but it is there for a moment.

This is the most time the series has spent on Ponder, and it was enjoyable. More competent than any other wizard, he's one of my favorite secondary characters in all of Discworld. Sure, he's one of those guys that corrects people all the time but his thoughts and frustrations are highly relatable.

Ponder Stibbons was one of those unfortunate people cursed with the belief that if only he found out enough things about the universe it would all, somehow, make sense.

This is not a book about Australia. No, it's about somewhere entirely different which happens to be, here and there, a bit... Australian. Still... no worries, right?

Although just about readable if you're short of occupation, this is a remarkably tedious book by Pratchett's standards, mostly about Rincewind, the wizards, and the Discworld's version of Australia. I don't dislike Rincewind, but he's inherently rather dull, and his habit of fleeing from one predicament to another tends to lead to aimless, plotless stories that Pratchett seems to make up as he goes along.