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Interesting Times

(Discworld #17)

Terry Pratchett

4.18 · Rating details · 37,623 ratings · 899 reviews

'A foot on the neck is nine points of the law'

There are many who say that the art of diplomacy is an intricate and complex dance. There are others who maintain that it's merely a matter of who carries the biggest stick. The oldest and most inscrutable (not to mention heavily fortified) empire on the Discworld is in turmoil, brought about by the revolutionary treatise What ...more

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Mass Market Paperback, 368 pages

Published March 4th 1998 by HarperTorch (first published November 1994)

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Mar 26, 2013 Bradley rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, humor, 2018-shelf

Interesting Times
or,
When Cohen Established that Dynasty That Time
or,
Rincewind Gets a New Suit.

I really enjoyed this Pratchett, being one of the few people who actually think that Rincewind is a likable anti-hero, or rather, a good runner. But sometimes even good runners get caught in the affairs of Wizzards and revolution. Okay, maybe it's Wizards and if I count him, it's only Wizzard, but you get the idea. :)

Welcome to China-ish, buddy! The Emperor would like to meet you. Or chop off your legs ...more

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Oct 02, 2017 Lyn rated it liked it

Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Bruce Lee, Yun Fat Chow, David Carradine and Michelle Yeoh sit in an Italian pizza place in Queens and discuss Terry Pratchett’s 17th Discworld novel Interesting Times.

Bruce Lee: Ok, first of all, David, why are you even here, you’re not Chinese.

Carradine: Come on, you all know why, I played Kwai Chang Caine on King Fu in the 70s, don’t act like you don’t …

Michelle: Anyhoo - Pratchett, pays homage to Asian culture through his counter continent Roman eclef, The Agatean Empire ...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Zach rated it really liked it

Shelves: own

I'm going to just say right off the bat that the Rincewind novels are not my favorite. I realize that it is Discworld blasphemy, but hear me out. Out of the entire Discworld main character cast, Rincewind makes the fewest decisions and has no desires other than to flee from trouble. As sort of a Forrest Gump/Scooby Doo hybrid (Forrest Doo? Scooby Gump?), his misadventures consist of finding himself in trouble, trying to escape, and then lucking out in some grand fashion. While it makes for good ...more

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Jul 25, 2015 Antonio rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: electrónicos, fantasía, sagas

Hay una maldición.
Dice:
Ojalá vivas en tiempos interesantes.

La quinta es la vencida, hasta ahora esta es la historia más sólida que leo del mundodisco sin dejar de ser graciosa, teniendo como protagonista a Rincewind el mago más cobarde que ha existido y que no importa que tanto trate de huir de todas las situaciones que se le presentan, los dioses o el destino, al parecer, siempre lo eligen como candidato para salvar al mundo.

Los personajes del libro me encantaron especialmente la Horda de p

Hay una maldición.
Dice:
Ojalá vivas en tiempos interesantes.

Los personajes del libro me encantaron especialmente la Horda de plata , que prueba que la edad es solo un número (que probablemente ellos no sepan contar) y que para ser héroe solo importa la actitud y la barbarie, a esta cuerda de viejitos cool se les une el Señor Saveloy “el profe” que tratara ~~sin mucho éxito~~ de civilizarlos.

¿Sabe? Resulta usted muy culto para ser un bárbaro —dijo Rincewind.
—Oh, cielos, yo no soy bárbaro de siempre. Yo era maestro de escuela. Por eso me llaman Profe.
—¿Y qué enseñaba?
—Geografía. Y me interesaban mucho los estudios aurientales. Pero decidí dejarlo para ganarme la vida con la espada.
—¿Después de ser profesor toda su vida?
—Supuso un cambio de perspectiva, sí.
—Pero... bueno., seguramente... las privaciones... los peligros terribles, el riesgo diario de muerte…
El señor Saveloy se animó de pronto:
—Ah, también usted ha sido maestro, ¿verdad?

De una forma satírica y atrayente Pratchett describe la cultura China, y lo cruel que puede ser una rebelión (muy al estilo Rebelión en la granja), por ello, y porque el final me encanto, este es, hasta ahora mi libro favorito del mundodisco, por eso pienso leer más de sus historias descabelladas.

—No —dijo Rincewind.
—Pero no se puede hundir uno en el hielo.
—No. Uno se resbala primero y luego se hunde y luego el hielo le golpea en la cabeza. Sin contar a las ballenas asesinas. Y unas focas enormes com lof diemtef afí.
—Esto es descabellado, lo sé —dijo el tesorero en tono jovial.
—¿El qué? —preguntó el conferenciante de Runas Recientes.
—Esta parte de la cabeza donde se me está cayendo el pelo.

...more

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Oct 27, 2018 Trish rated it really liked it · review of another edition

It all starts with the gods playing another game. Because Fate always wins - at least if the other players adhere to the rules. Which his new opponent doesn't. Resulting in a very interesting butterfly ~~effect~~. ;)

In this 17th Discworld novel Rincewind is returned to Unseen University and makes a deal with Ridcully to go to Discworld's oldest Empire to help them with their current revolution in exchange for being allowed to come back for good and being called a ~~wizzard~~ wizard. Due to the fact that ...more

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Jan 02, 2017 Algernon (Darth Anyan) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017

[7/10]

"May you live in interesting times!" is a long established curse on the Counterweight Continent of the Discworld. The Agatean Empire is just heading this way as its aging, demented Emperor is about to die and five noble families who have fought one another for centuries: The Hongs, the Sungs, the Tangs, the McSweeneys ( very old established family) and the Fangs gather their armies around the capital city of HungHung in preparation of the war of succession. High above them in the clouds ...more

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Jan 17, 2016 Stefanie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016, humor-parody, fantasy-sci-fi-spn, series, own

The problem with Rincewind books is that I really like Rincewind, and Rincewind books tend to have more problematic elements than the other Discworld books, and also the most recycled. This is the worst culprit of Pratchett's rather casual racism (and also the overuse (see: any use at all) of rape jokes--what was with that?).

So I really struggled with whether to give this two or three stars. I felt if I gave it two stars, it would indicate that I didn't like this book at all. Which isn't true! ...more

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Nov 10, 2012 Ashley rated it liked it

Shelves: anglophilia, fantasy, humor, ridiculously-prolific-authors, satire, swashbucklers-capers-and-heists, treasure-and-adventure

One of the worst curses you can fling at a Discworld character is “May you live in interesting times,” hence the title of the book.

But aside from it’s promising title, the 17th Discworld book was a bit of a letdown after the fitting soulful musings of Soul Music, but it almost made up for it in sheer volume of jokes and witticisms alone. I wanted to quote something practically every other page. The perfect Discworld book is funny, biting, and deep-hitting. This one was mostly just amusing, altho One of the worst curses you can fling at a Discworld character is “May you live in interesting times,” hence the title of the book.

But aside from it’s promising title, the 17th Discworld book was a bit of a letdown after the fitting soulful musings of Soul Music, but it almost made up for it in sheer volume of jokes and witticisms alone. I wanted to quote something practically every other page. The perfect Discworld book is funny, biting, and deep-hitting. This one was mostly just amusing, although it did have some in-world continuity to fall back on that gave it a little extra oomph.

Although it can be read on its own, Interesting Times is a Rincewind book, and in many ways it’s actually a direct sequel to the very first Discworld books, The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. We first met Rincewind and the flat disc of a world he lives on (carried around space by four giant elephants perched on the back of an even more giant turtle) when he is shanghaied into playing guide to a hapless tourist named Twoflower from the faraway Counterweight Continent. The two of them have many ridiculous adventures together, which mostly consist of Twoflower being delighted by everything, including and most especially when his life is in danger, and Rincewind being inept and terrified by it all, but somehow stumbling through and saving the day anyway. Interesting Times turns the tables and finds Rincewind an unexpected tourist on the Counterweight Continent, only it seems he’s been called there because Revolution is brewing, and Twoflower’s tales of his adventures in Ankh-Morpork and beyond (which he wrote up and titled “What I Did on My Summer Holidays”) have lent him the moniker The Great Wizard. The people want him to help them overthrow their cruel Empire, a task for which he is monumentally unfit.

There’s also some stuff with The Luggage and a group of old, old men (like, SERIOUSLY old) led by Cohen the Barbarian who are also in the country to do nefarious things to the Empire. The joke with them is mostly that they’re so old you’d think they’d be incompetent but they are still the most deadly people in the room, even the one in the wheel chair, and there’s this whole thing about them trying to learn to be “civilized.” It mostly all works.

The ending felt a little too coincidental for me, and again, it was mostly all surface level humor (although still very funny), so it’s definitely not one of my favorites in this series, but still a good read. What this book lacks in plotting and such it makes up for in enthusiasm and jokes about really old mangy men.

[3.5 stars] ...more

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Aug 15, 2015 David Sarkies rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: People who love Pratchett (and those who don't)

Recommended to David by: Stewart Wymer

Shelves: comedy

Rincewind in China
22 August 2015

When my friend leant me this book he simply said 'Rincewind' at which I rolled my eyes. I must say that Rincewind is certainly not my favourite Discworld character, even though some of the books in which he has starred have been quite good. However I wasn't really expecting anything all that much to come from this book, even though it is one of the Discworld novels and I am slowly making my way through each of them (and it was also a bit of a time out from some o Rincewind in China
22 August 2015

When my friend leant me this book he simply said 'Rincewind' at which I rolled my eyes. I must say that Rincewind is certainly not my favourite Discworld character, even though some of the books in which he has starred have been quite good. However I wasn't really expecting anything all that much to come from this book, even though it is one of the Discworld novels and I am slowly making my way through each of them (and it was also a bit of a time out from some of the heavier novels that I have read).

It turned out that it was a good thing that I didn't expect all that much from this book because if you aren't expecting all that much then it is really easy to exceed those expectations. In fact I really enjoyed this book, and even Rincewind was quite cool, especially when you appreciate the nature of his character (namely that his main rule of survival is to run away as fast as possible, and that a boring life is a good life because a boring life means that your lifespan is inevitably going to be much longer).

This time Pratchett takes us to China, or at least Discworld's equivalent of China – the Agatean Empire. This was a little odd because with the first book the suggestion was that the Agatean Empire was in fact Japan (in which Pratchett was poking fun at the stereotypical Japanese Tourist – Twoflower). However, it now turns out that it is China and that people weren't supposed to actually leave the country and visit the world on the other side of the wall. In fact the powers that be discourage that simply by telling everybody that there is nothing behind the wall except demons and ghosts.

Thus therein lies the problem. Not only did Twoflower leave but when he returned he wrote a book called 'What I did on my Holidays'. Sure, it sound's like some primary school essay, but I am sure that primary school essays have managed to morph themselves into revolutionary documents. Actually, there have been countless numbers of books that have morphed themselves into revolutionary documents, despite the author having no intention beyond simply writing a fascinating story.

The other issue is that the emperor is dying, which means that there is an opening for a new emperor. Sure, the Emperor should have an heir, but that doesn't seem to be the case here, and even if he did having an heir does not necessarily mean that that heir is going to become emperor, namely because there is some other guy who wants that title – Lord Hong. As one can expect from a farcical comedy, nothing seems to go right for poor Hong. Sure, he manages to kill the emperor, but before he can take the title as his own he suddenly discovers that somebody has beaten him to the punch – Cohen the Barbarian, or as we find out – Genghiz Cohen.

If there is one thing that I absolutely loved about this book it has to be the Silver Horde (which is a play on the Golden Horde, otherwise known as the Mongals). Here we have a handful of old men, who happen to be barbarians, sneaking into the city to steal the throne of the empire. Sure, most people expect old men to be weak and frail, but that would be a huge mistake when approaching the Silver Horde. In fact at one point the end up beating up a room full of ninja.

I also quite liked the idea of the wall. We all think that the Great Wall of China was built to keep the Mongal Hordes out (and good job it did to – NOT), however Pratchett suggests that that is not the case – it is designed to keep the people inside. We can't have plebs leaving the country, learning new ideas, such as rebellion, and then bringing it back and corrupting people – they've already had a problem with one person doing that. Anyway, as Cohen says, how is a wall going to stop a horde of barbarians? They ain't going to get there, see the wall, and decide that it is all too hard and go home again. No, they are going to take wood from all the trees lying around and then build ladders so they can climb over it.

This whole thing about keeping the people in made me think about China back when it was written. Back then you hardly had any Chinese travelling abroad – these days you have heaps. I was sort of wandering whether Pratchett was having a dig at some of these closed countries, though prior to the 19th Century China was a pretty closed country and many of the peasants were intentionally kept ignorant so as not to upset the balance (apparently the Chinese Script was invented to make it really hard for the general populace to become literate). Still, I'm not sure if you are meant to think too deeply with a Terry Pratchett book (though then again it is satire, so I am probably wrong), but then again it is something that I do enjoy doing. ...more

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Apr 19, 2015 Lindsay rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, humor

Part of the Pratchett reread with the SpecFic Buddy Reads group in 2018.

Rincewind gets recruited by Mustrum Ridcully and the faculty of Unseen University to go to the Counterweight Continent and the country of the Agatean Empire, Discworld's version of China (with quite a few Japanese bits). The Agatean Empire is experiencing a period of unrest with the Emperor about to die and the county's warlords gathering to determine who the next Emperor will be. There is, of course, a Grand Vizier called ...more

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Jan 13, 2017 Sonia rated it liked it · review of another edition

Todo lo que vaya a decir a partir de ahora está influenciado por el hecho de que sigo leyendo la saga de los magos de MundoDisco sin que acabe de gustarme, simplemente por terminarla, para luego empezar otra a la espera de que quizás esta acabe siendo de mi agrado.
Reconozco la maestría del autor para la ironía, su imaginación desbordante y su capacidad de parodia, capaz de abarcar a toda una sociedad o la idea tan limitada que podamos tener de ella pero estas historias no pasan para mí de entret ...more

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May 16, 2011 Toby rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantastical, funny

Essentially this is silly, racist and obvious, a typical Rincewind book really. But to counter that you have a lot of fun with Cohen the Barbarian and to counter that you have and old man in a wheelchair whose sole purpose for being in the novel is to shout "What?!" to everything. Because he's deaf you see. Yeah it's that kind of Discworld book.

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Mar 25, 2016 Gehayi rated it did not like it

Shelves: do-not-read

SPOILERS BELOW. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Okay. I'm going to have to say something controversial here. This book is downright horrible.

I realize that's practically blasphemy, since it was written by Terry Pratchett (whose work I generally love). I know that Pratchett was a satirist. I am aware that it was spoofing books like James Clavell's Asian Saga (Shogun, Noble House, King Rat, etc.), in which a white guy handles Asia better than the Asians and ends up in charge. I remember Clavell's books and t ...more

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Jan 31, 2008 Chris rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, humor, pratchett

There is a saying, often attributed to the Chinese - "May you live in interesting times." Usually when this is invoked, it's done so as a curse, the idea being that interesting times are more likely to cause you trouble than nice boring times, and perhaps that's true. The folks in Baghdad, for example, are certainly living in interesting times right now. The trouble is that not everybody is able to stay alive to enjoy them.

That's one of the problems with life as we know it - we long for things t There is a saying, often attributed to the Chinese - "May you live in interesting times." Usually when this is invoked, it's done so as a curse, the idea being that interesting times are more likely to cause you trouble than nice boring times, and perhaps that's true. The folks in Baghdad, for example, are certainly living in interesting times right now. The trouble is that not everybody is able to stay alive to enjoy them.

That's one of the problems with life as we know it - we long for things to be interesting, exciting and thrilling, like what happens to Bruce Willis every time he's on the screen. When those times come, however, we realize that it's the boring, predictable times we really want. In other words, we want whatever we don't have at the moment, which just goes to prove that we, as a species, are messed up in the head. If we had been assembled by any rational Supreme Being, it would have made us a little more accepting of the lives we lead. This mind-set may not lead us to the advanced society we have now, but it certainly would lead us to something approaching world peace.

This book is about wanting what you don't have, and what happens when you get it.

The central character is the wizard - or Wizzard - Rincewind, one of the oldest of the Discworld characters. He's been with the series since the first book, The Colour of Magic, and he's grown to be a favorite for many readers. What Rincewind wants, really wants, is to be left alone. No quests, no challenges, no one trying to kill him or otherwise ruin his day. If the world forgot that Rincewind existed, he'd be the happiest man alive.

Unfortunately for Rincewind, the world hasn't forgotten him. He has to be sent to the far-off Agatean Empire, a place so remote that few, if any, people know anything about it. A message came, asking for the Great Wizzard, and Rincewind is the only one who fits the bill. The fact that he can't do magic is not important, really.

When he gets there, he meets Cohen the Barbarian and his Silver Horde - seven incredibly old barbarian heroes. Seven men who don't know the meaning of the word "defeat," though you'd probably have to repeat it very loudly before they heard what you'd said. Together, the Horde are headed to the capital city of the Empire, looking to make the biggest heist in their long, long, long barbarian careers.

Together, Rincewind, Cohen and the Horde find the Empire in the throes of a people's revolution, borne of righteous peasant rage and the skillful manipulations of the Grand Vizier, Lord Hong.

Like so many Discworld books, this is a lot of fun to read. The Agatean Empire is a blend of ancient China and Japan, giving us ninja and samurai alongside blue and white Ming ceramics and an exam-based bureaucracy. And like most of the other Discworld books, this one gives you something to think about - what do you want to be?

Rincewind wants to be left alone, because he thinks he'll be safer that way. Cohen wants to settle down, because he worries that his life as a barbarian hero might be catching up to him. Lord Hong wants to be a gentleman of Ankh-Morpork, or at least the ruler of such men. And the people of the Empire, who call themselves the Red Army, want to be free, even though they have no idea what being free means.

The only character who seems to change his life for the better is Mister Saveloy, the youngest member of the Silver Horde and the one they call "Teach." He realized that what he thought he wanted - a life of educating young people - wasn't what he really wanted after all. What he wanted was the certainty and simplicity of Cohen's barbarian lifestyle, and found it rather agreed with him.

So what's the lesson here? Perhaps this: Be happy with what you have, but don't be afraid to change. Just remember that not all change is for the better.
...more

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Oct 18, 2016 Crispitina30 rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Este libro me ha emocionado, destrozado y hecho reír a partes iguales.

Considero al señor Pratchett un maestro no sólo por su ingenioso sentido del humor y su amplia imaginación, sino por su capacidad de narrar historias que, además de sacarte varias carcajadas, te hacen reflexionar sobre la vida.

En esta novela del Mundodisco (la quinta de la Saga de los Magos o Saga Rincewind), nuestro querido Rincewind se ve envuelto en esta ocasión en una aventura desarrollada en el Imperio Ágata. Al parecer, ...more

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Jun 20, 2011 K. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, borrowed-from-friends, humour, setting-fantasy, 2016, library, poc-narrator, audience-adult

3.5 stars.

On the whole, the Rincewind books are probably my least favourite subset of the Discworld series (with the exception of The Lost Continent, obviously). And it's been years since I'd read this one. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that while Rincewind still annoys me as a character and there were some "uhhh, that's a tiny bit racist" moments in it because it's now 20-odd years old, on the whole this one was fairly enjoyable.

It features Rincewind going to the Counterweight Contine ...more

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Mar 16, 2018 Nigel rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, humour

I hate writing this about a Terry Pratchett book but frankly this is really not one of his best. It almost became a "dnf" though the end was quite entertaining.

Having devoured the series from one it started and waited for each year's book I sort of drifted off probably a book or two before this one. Reading this suggests I was right! What is remarkable is just how good his writing became again later on. The Tiffany Aching books are among the best he wrote (IMHO). This one doesn't really bear com ...more

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Sep 23, 2018 Wiebke (1book1review) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This was such a great trip, hanging out with Rincewind and Twoflower again, seeing Cohen take over an empire and thinking about revolutions.

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Oct 12, 2016 YouKneeK rated it liked it

Shelves: completed-series, fantasy

Interesting Times is from the Rincewind subseries of Discworld. It’s been quite a few books since I’ve seen Rincewind, so it was fun to see him again. He always makes me laugh.

If you’ve read the earlier books, you may remember that Rincewind once had some adventures with Twoflower, a visitor from the Counterweight continent. In this book Rincewind finds himself, quite against his will of course, dropping in on the Counterweight continent and getting caught up in a revolution.

It was a lot of fu ...more

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Jun 18, 2013 Molly Westerman rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, fantasy

Hmm. Well. My husband read this one immediately before I did and said, handing me the book, "I'm interested to know whether you think this is racist, or somehow parodying stereotypes of Asian people?" Having finished it, I too feel uncertain.

This is a really funny book. It's Pratchett, after all, and it's got Ridcully and Ponder Stibbons and Rincewind's talent for surviving (aka running away while screaming ohshitohshitohshit I'm going to die) and Conan and some other extremely elderly barbarian ...more

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Dec 30, 2013 Wastrel rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: z-1995, r-ps, fantastika-social-fantasy

Short version? Pratchett tries to return to his earlier style with the lessons he's learnt along the way. This starts out promisingly. Unfortunately then he tries to combine that earlier, sillier style with multiple serious political discussions and several unrelated books, all in a setting that is, to put it mildly, culturally insensitive. It doesn't work.

There are some great lines, but by and large it's just too dull and despite its good qualities it outstays its welcome (50 pages of long, dra ...more

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Sep 22, 2010 Lorelei rated it really liked it

Shelves: humour, sf

I rarely think of rereading this particular discworld book - not for any reason I can guess. My kids started reading this one aloud and sucked me right into it, and I am very glad. It is a truely delightful book, although we all tend to moan a bit about the awful things that Terry Pratchett came up with to keep doing to Rincewind.

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Aug 23, 2017 Veronika Sebechlebská rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: humor, fantasy

Prečo existuje tak veľa kníh o Mrakoplašovi a tak málo o Barbarovi Cohanovi? Život nie je fér.

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Oct 10, 2012 Roviragrao rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: relecturas

(Relectura Mundodisco #17)

Rincewind sigue en su camino del anti-héroe, es decir, huyendo de cualquier aventura posible. El contraste lo proporciona la Horda Plateada, grupo de ancianos bárbaros liderado por Cohen, que hace que todos los tiempos sean interesantes. Juntos se enfrentan al Imperio Ágata, que gobierna de una forma que hace añorar las cadenas.

Estamos ante una divertidísima novela sobre la civilización y la barbarie. La Horda Plateada acapara mucho protagonismo y es todo un acierto. Co ...more

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Feb 17, 2017 Jeraviz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, humor

Ojalá vivas en tiempos interesantes. Eso es algo que le ocurre continuamente a Rincewind, y no podría haber mayor amenaza que esa para alguien que lo único que quiere es estar en una isla desierta sin nadie que le moleste.
Pratchett hace en esta novela un ensayo sobre la civilización y la barbarie, sobre lo políticamente correcto y sobre el papel del héroe en la sociedad moderna.
Tal vez el envoltorio esté lleno de magos, baúles con patas y mundos a espaldas de tortugas, pero la esencia que cuent ...more

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Apr 04, 2014 Jessica rated it liked it

Yay for seeing Twoflower again! And any story with Cohen tends to be funny. I wish Lord Hong had been less one-dimensional though: his whole character revolved around "I can do everything better than everyone else." That gets boring very quickly. I would have loved to see him interact with Vetinari, since he held him in such high regard.

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Oct 23, 2015 HomeInMyShoes rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015-booklist, fantasy, united-kingdom, discworld

While Death only has a very small bit in this book, I still loved this one. Fate playing games with the others at the beginning is a great bit and there is lots to love in Cohen the Barbarian.

I am saddened that after having finished this one, I only have fourteen Discworld books that I have not read now.

Four stars.

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Feb 21, 2013 Carol rated it really liked it

Shelves: pratchett, fantasy, rereads

I don't think I'd read this one before but I loved it. Though it's hard not to love a story with Rincewind in it!

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Nov 26, 2018 Alfred Haplo rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi-fantasy

Interesting Times is my best Rincewind book to-date *, which is bizarre to contemplate. In recalling my past impressions of Rincewind’s character, something struck me at once. I no longer feel irked but indifferent by DiscWorld’s resident irritant and craven wizard, now relegated to necessary evil status. His is a character so entrenched with fans that changing anything about his personality might result in revolt. Instead, his surroundings are changed around him, with best wishes to everyone el Interesting Times is my best Rincewind book to-date *, which is bizarre to contemplate. In recalling my past impressions of Rincewind’s character, something struck me at once. I no longer feel irked but indifferent by DiscWorld’s resident irritant and craven wizard, now relegated to necessary evil status. His is a character so entrenched with fans that changing anything about his personality might result in revolt. Instead, his surroundings are changed around him, with best wishes to everyone else. If I can accept the character, I can rationalize my feelings about the story.

Fortunately, accidental hero is a mantle Rincewind wears well, particularly if the alternative is either bad or worse. Besides, every other main character is far better developed but those would have to be killed, or maimed, or made to suffer, or at the very least, philosophized, and must therefore not be wasted in Interesting Times. So, Rincewind it is, and Rincewind is teleported as sacrificial emissary to the cultural and economic backwater on the far side of the Disc, the Counterweight Continent.

Welcome to China? Where else would exist a Great Wall, Forbidden City, The Art of War, Sum Dim (the purpose of this reversal escapes me), summer palace, women with small feet, and a red clay army? Not to be confused with the other country of the ninjas, kimonos and sumo wrestlers variety, which is also lumped into the dynastic Agatean Empire. To be fair, other countries assert their positions here for joke material as well, but none bears the brunt as much as the Chinese. When distinct Asian cultures are melded into a generic “Aurientals”, and comedy is made at their expense without reciprocity, I feel indignant on their behalf but indulged in silly laughing anyway. A readymade template of stereotypes plugged in with Rincewind is designed to be lighthearted, so why fight it.

Even if that bit of sensitivity can be overcome, there is the Silver Horde. Cohen and his ancient bro-barbarians are here to pillage the Agatean Empire. When a group of white, albeit comical, foreigners invade an Asian-like continent, with talks of rape and rapine, and all the while the local citizenry is portrayed as ignoramus and simpletons, and are immediately subservient to ruling change, it sits rather uncomfortably.

There is a distinct social hierarchy within the Agatean people - the peasants, the rebels, the learned, the rulers - but here, they are presented as a monolith. The whole of Agatean is just A Caricature, the “other” people. The people who speak funny, are named funny, work funny, obey funny, rule funny because they are not like “us". Which is oddly going against the grain, coming from Pratchett, this heavy-handed humor.

I feel sorry for the missed opportunities. The Agateans are viewed from a skewed outsider perspective but more interesting would be from within their own in the manner of the excellent Pyramids. Two new refreshing characters, Mr Saveloy, teacher turned barbarian-diplomat, and Pretty Butterfly, skeptical young rebel, looked promising for bridging the cultural divide but both are under-utilized. Introspection is ironically focused on the foreign invaders and not the invaded, in how they deal with aging, mortality, and following one’s true calling. It is easy to be drawn into the emotional aspects of that, until you realized that the Silver Horde is just a bunch of killers who never grew up.

Interesting Times is a peculiar sort of novel that is neither here nor there, where everyone and everything is sort of out of place. Except Rincewind, of course, who is exactly where he should be down under... Down under what? Down under my stack of DiscWorld books, 17 and counting.

[* Rincewind sub-series: The Color or Magic Discworld #1, Rincewind #1, Light Fantastic DW #2, RW #2, Sourcery DW #5, RW #3, Eric ~~Faust~~ DW #9, RW #4] ...more

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Sep 24, 2016 jzthompson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: asia, fiction, humour, imaginary-world, food-and-drink, travel, written-by-a-dude, re-read, war

There's a sense here that Pratchett is struggling to fit Rincewind's default 'live to run another day' ethos into his more developed mode of story telling. It worked (for a given value of 'worked') for picaresque adventures like The Colour of Magic or the Light Fantastic, where the point was getting from one piss-take of fantasy cliches to another as quickly as possible. By this point though the Discworld books had become vehicles for Pratchett to explore moral or political questions from a cock There's a sense here that Pratchett is struggling to fit Rincewind's default 'live to run another day' ethos into his more developed mode of story telling. It worked (for a given value of 'worked') for picaresque adventures like The Colour of Magic or the Light Fantastic, where the point was getting from one piss-take of fantasy cliches to another as quickly as possible. By this point though the Discworld books had become vehicles for Pratchett to explore moral or political questions from a cock-eyed perspective. Rincewind does get an absolutely brilliant speech on the stupidity of laying down your life for 'A Cause,' but this doesn't really become the *point* of the book in a way it would have done in other Discworlds.

Taken purely as a jokey adventure novel though it does hold up very well. Rincewind and the Silver Horde are great comic creations. The jokes are largely on target. There's a brief running gag about one of the elderly barbarians wanting to rape and pillage to a degree beyond him. I think we've advanced to the point where rape jokes don't really sit well, even as black-comedy murder is still acceptable. I think it's notable though that the most developed members of the Silver Horde, Cohen and Mr Saveloy, are aloof from this. There's a couple of comments in the other reviews complaining about racism. Certainly there are a lot of cliched characters here but I think this misses the point a bit... The Rincewind books are all about holding a mirror up to fantasy cliches, and the cliches being examined here are the 'European in the Orient' adventures exemplified by James Clavell's Shogun. So you get back-flipping ninjas, downtrodden peasants holding water buffalos on a bit of string, lotus blossoms, dragon ladies and such like... Pratchett is doing his best to humanise the cliches though, rather than presenting them without thought or (the cheap option for a satirist) revelling in them.

Reading back the review reads more as an apologia than anything. But strangely I felt a lot more warmly towards it than anything I've written above really indicates. Partly this is down to personal circumstances. Interesting Times was the book I had with me on a family holiday when I was 12, and the edition I have is barely held together with sellotape and sun tan lotion. Also as I've got older I've realised more and more that were I to find myself in a fantasy adventure it would probably be filling the Rincewind role (these days I even have the scrappy beard) so it's nice to read an adventure where he gets to have a bit of moral authority for a change. Mostly though it's just that early-mid ninties Pratchett was absolutely on top of his game. Nearly incapable of producing a duff sentence or a less-than-compelling plot. Even his lesser works from this period have a glow of magic about them. ...more

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About Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett

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Born Terence David John Pratchett, Sir Terry Pratchett sold his first story when he was thirteen, which earned him enough money to buy a second-hand typewriter. His first novel, a humorous fantasy entitled The Carpet People, appeared in 1971 from the publisher Colin Smythe.

Terry worked for many years as a journalist and press officer, writing in his spare time and publishing a number of novels, i ...more

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Quotes from Interesting Times

“Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events -- the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there -- that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous.” — 561 likes

“And therefore education at the University mostly worked by the age-old method of putting a lot of young people in the vicinity of a lot of books and hoping that something would pass from one to the other, while the actual young people put themselves in the vicinity of inns and taverns for exactly the same reason.” — 39 likes

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