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Summary: Rincewind, the luggage and Two Flower are back! Hooray!
Review: Ya gotta love The Great Wizzard and his travelling companions. I'm glad they're back in their inimitable fashion. Keep 'em coming!
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Summary: A Very Good Rincewind Book
Review: This is the 18th of Pratchett's Discworld series. It once again brings back Rincewind and re-unites him with Cohen and Twoflower (though Twoflower's role is practically a cameo). Pratchett does an excellent job of intertwining the two multiply-intersecting story-lines centering around Cohen and Rincewind. The recurring motifs of potatoes (I almost died while Rincewind was on his desert isle and thought some beautiful women were offering him potatoes) and "Aaargh" were hilarious, so pay attention when they're introduced. The book fleshes out Cohen's character a bit more and does some more development of the Unseen University's "Hex." Very good book.
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Summary: A very well managed absurdity
Review: This is my first encounter with a Disc World novel so maybe that is why during the first 30 pages I was absolutely lost trying to discover what was going on and not laughing at all. ... luckily I got a grasp about the concept of the novel and kept on reading.More important than the plot - which in any case intends to be silly - is the irony and mockery that Mr. Pratchett makes of people obssesed with power and control. Humor will always be the best tool to show to us how ridicul they are and how senseless is their perception of the world. It is worth reading for all iconoclasts.
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Summary: GENIUS,
Review: Pratchett is easily one of the greatest writers of our time with an inventive style that has enough fireworks keep a six year old amused(though i wouldn't recomend it for content) and provide food for the thought for the most learned of our kind. This was the third discworld book i had read but my favorite still after 12. An excelent starting point in the seris of a world that lets us laugh at our selves and every respect of our cultures, without embarresing anyone openminded enough to look twice.
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Summary: ENTERTAINING - BUT NOT ONE OF HIS BEST
Review: I like Pratchett's writing, and would be among the first to say that (unless you had your sense of humour surgically removed at birth) it is hard to go wrong buying any of his Discworld books. However, "Interesting Times" is not his best work. If you are a completist you'll of course want to read it, and either way you are likely to enjoy it. However, if you have not yet read all the others in the series, then getting to this one should possibly not be your top priority. One reason is that the character of Rincewind had almost exhausted his potential by this time. Successful and likeable an anti-hero though he is, there is only so much a writer can do with one highly eccentric literary character, and (sorry, fans, you can vote against this review all you like) there seems a touch of desperation in putting the running joke of a cowardly, non-magical wizard through his paces once again. Secondly, TP has not been quite faithful to his own creations. Twoflower, the innocent and bumbling tourist from "The Color of Magic" and "The Light Fantastic" was (please correct me if I'm wrong) the affectionate parody of all those wealthy and gullible American tourists who came to Europe in the '50's and '60's with superior spending power and technology but a dangerous innocence about the way they were being relieved of their cash. It is surely an artistic error to suddenly redefine him as a parody of the supposedly inscrutable Chinese simply because the plot demands a familiar foil for Rincewind. Don't let me knock this too hard - it's good clean fun as usual - but it's not Pratchett's best.
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Summary: My first Discworld
Review: While I've known Terry Pratchett's name for some time now (his collaboration with Neil Gaiman in Good Omens is fantastic) I'd never read one of his books before. I was familiar with the world from an old graphic novel of one of his books (I think Color of Magic) so I didn't feel obligated to start at the beginning. Interesting Times follows the character of Rincewind on a journey through the Counterweight Continent, the discworld version of the Orient. Rincewind is an interesting character and Pratchett plays him well as a rather powerless wizard who just happens to get by through a sheer amount of luck, and the quickness of his fleeing legs. A pessimistic character, I liked him through the beginning of the book, though by the end his uneagerness to help anyone grew a bit tiresome (though unconciously he tends to help out a great deal.) Rincewind shares the stage, however, with a group of aging barbarians called the Silver Horde who steal the show really. The best bits of the book are the ones involving the Horde. Their lessons on how to be civilized and inability to change their habits. While I can't rate this in comparison to other Discworld books, I found it highly entertaining, and though, probably not the best place to start the series off. Read some other Pratchett books to aquaint yourself with the world, and work your way up to Interesting Times. It's worth the time.
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Summary: The non-linear intro to the Disc.
Review: This was my first Discworld book, read about a year and a half ago. Pratchett binging ever since. I think I've read ten or twelve now. I do know there have only been two non-Pratchett books and a small hiatus to re-read the Hitchhiker's Guide when Mr. Adams passed on. The only reason Interesting Times doesn't get 5 stars is because "Small Gods" was a rather seminal book to me, and overshadows this one, if only because of the topic it covers. (Using hilarity to outline a church concept which had me smacking my forehead and cracking the back of my head on the headboard.) Anyway, I read this and had no idea who Twoflower was, or Cohen, or CMOT Dibbler, or any of the other usual suspects, and still enjoyed it immensely. The follow-up effort "Last Continent" left me wanting, but my girlfriend loved it. I still think the quote on the back of one of his newer books seems to say it best... it says something along the lines of 'you'd expect Mr. Pratchett to recycle material or become formulaic in the Discworld series after XX books, but each time he goes back to the mine he returns with a motherload.'
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Summary: Empires Rises and Falls, Human Stupidity Remain the Same
Review: It is the between time when empires fall and new ones emerges that the faces of human stupidity is shown, and no matter how much thing change, the more they remain the same. This is the "Interesting Times" to wit Terry Pratchett has themed the book.
In this book Pratchett explore the concept of "good intentions sometime causes bad thing to happen" where he dealt with the idea through the Red Army in the book. This book also feature heavily Ghenghis Cohen, one of the interesting character who is mentioned from time to times. Cohen if enigmatic, and anyone who read Interesting Times will surely like him.
The backdrop theme of this book concern a lot about Asian culture and why the fall of the Chinese was inevertable, as illustrated quite well in this book.
Pratchett also detailed a great deal about Asian culture. Given all the details and complexity of this book, in addition to the cowardous character of Rinewind and the enigmatic Ghenghis Cohen, this book is a must have. This is one of my favorite book of all time, it is one of the most well storied book by Pratchett with complex themes and the character of Rinewind and Cohen finally fully developed.
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Summary: One of the best!
Review: For those of you who don't know, the Discworld series is proken up into little subcycles. This is possibly the best in the ongoing Rincewind cycle. Possibly. What the plot boils down to is, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork has recieved a very strange message from the ancient and very, very rich Agatean Empire, on the Counterweight Continent where gold is as common as dirt, asking for the Great Wizzard. No, I didn't misspell it. Rincewind is sent off to the Empire and ends up in the middle of a revolution which- this being the Agatean Empire- is being done politely. For the established PTerry readers, who recall the first two books, Twoflower's back (Rincewind is not all that happy about this fact) and he's brought daughters!
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Summary: The BEST pratcett book there is!
Review: I'm telling you, I've read all the rincewind books and this is by FAR the best discworld book you'll read, possibly along with Sourcery and The fifth elephant, maybe just maybe the last Continent. Terry Pratchett is my FAVE writer and always will be. I can't wait to read the next book. If your looking to get another book this should be the one you'll buy because its a class A book. Definately a good read.
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