Pyramids – DaneCobain.com

Terry Pratchett – The Last Continent | Review

Title: The Last Continent

Author: Terry Pratchett

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 288

Rating: 7/10

Terry Pratchett – The Last Continent

The Last Continent is an interesting one – loosely speaking, it follows the story of Rincewind’s adventures on the last continent, XXXX – the Discworld’s equivalent of Australia. As usual, you can expect all sorts of hijinks and a hell of a lot of bad luck, as the Disc’s most useless wizard tries to find his way home. Personally, I didn’t think much of this novel, but perhaps that’s because of the fact that I’ve never been particularly keen on Rincewind as a character, and because of a noticeable lack of other favourites in the supporting cast. To be fair, it would be hard to explain their sudden appearance in Australia, but still.

That said, it’s certainly as good as many other Discworld novels, and just because I wouldn’t class this as a favourite, it doesn’t mean that it’s not on a par with many of the other books that Pratchett released. If you’re Australian, or if you have an interest in the country, then you’re probably going to like this in the same way that you’re more likely to enjoy Pyramids if you have an interest in Ancient Egypt. All of this is despite the fact that, at the beginning of the book, it says that “Terry Pratchett would like it to be known that The Last Continent is not a book about Australia. It’s just vaguely Australian.”

One thing that I do think is worth mentioning here is the cover – all of Pratchett’s cover art is awesome, but this one is particularly good in my opinion – I have the hardback, so the paperback might not be the same.

Terry Pratchett

Click here to buy The Last Continent.

Terry Pratchett – Pyramids | Review

Title: Pyramids

Author: Terry Pratchett

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 384

Rating: 7/10

Terry Pratchett – Pyramids

Pyramids is, of course, Sir Pratchett’s take on ancient Egypt, a subject that I’m interested in. It’s always fascinated both myself and my mom, and we were planning on visiting some of the sites until unrest in the country put a rest to that. You’d think that a Discworld book about Egypt would be like a dream come true for me.

Unfortunately, I struggled to get into it, and whilst I did ultimately enjoy it, it’s not a book that I’d bother to re-read, with so many others available to me. I’m honestly not sure how I’m going to meet my word count, because I don’t have much more to say – it was just filler material, at least to me.

I don’t even want to dig into the plot, and for once it’s not because I don’t want to ruin it for you – it’s because it leaves me feeling kind of apathetic, and I just don’t really want to talk about it. And it’s a shame, because I thought it started out well, with the future king (spoiler alert, my bad) training to become an assassin in Ankh-Morpork.

Terry Pratchett

You’d think that would make for a good book, right? Unfortunately, you’d be wrong – the protagonist, whose name I can’t spell, leaves Ankh Morpork not long after you start reading, and things gradually go downhill from there. I’m not saying this is a bad novel, not at all – it’s just that it’s average, and average isn’t good enough when we’re talking about Terry Pratchett.

Personally, I’m close to recommending that you avoid it, but that’s just going too far – still, you might want to save it, so you can read it when you’re starting to run out of Discworld novels to devour. Pyramids almost sits in isolation to the other books in the series, which might be part of the reason why I didn’t think much of it, but that also means that you can skip past it if you’re reading them in order, without any repercussions.

Overall, then, feel free to proceed with caution – you might enjoy it, who knows? But as for me, I won’t be recommending it to any of my friends. Not any time soon.