The Last Continent (Discworld, #22; Rincewind, #6)

by Terry Pratchett

Rincewind tried to seem harmless. It required little in the way of acting.

Rincewind was, after all, a wizard. Not a good one, but he was sensitive to magic.

“Last one into the water’s a man standing all by himself on the beach!”

It is often said about desert environments that there is in fact a lot of nutritious food around, if only you know what to look for. Rincewind mused on this as he pulled a plate of chocolate-covered sponge cakes from their burrow. They had dried coconut flakes on them. He turned the plate cautiously. Well, you couldn’t argue with it. He was finding food in the desert. In fact, he was even finding dessert in the desert.

The wizards were civilized men of considerable education and culture. When faced with being inadvertently marooned on a desert island they understood immediately that the first thing to do was place the blame.

“You’re thinking: what kind of bird stops flyin’ around for a quick smoke?” “A puffin,” said the Bursar.

A road. Roads went somewhere. Sooner or later they went everywhere. And when you got there, you generally found walls, buildings, harbors . . . boats. And incidentally a shortage of talking kangaroos. That was practically one of the hallmarks of civilization.

The word “friend” jumped into the forefront of Rincewind’s brain. There are many reasons for being friends with someone. The fact that he’s pointing a deadly weapon at you is among the top four.

He flung himself flat on the swaying roof, held out the crossbow, shut his eyes and fired. In accordance with ancient narrative practice, the shot ricocheted off someone’s helmet and brought down an innocent bird some distance away, whose only role was to expire with a suitably humorous squawk.

Discworld constellations changed frequently as the world moved through the void, which meant that astrology was cutting-edge research rather than, as elsewhere, a clever way of avoiding a proper job. It was amazing how human traits and affairs could so reliably and continuously be guided by a succession of big balls of plasma billions of miles away, most of whom have never even heard of humanity.

The tiniest little actions can have huge consequences. You might . . . tread on an ant now and it might entirely prevent someone from being born in the future!” “Really?” said Ridcully. “Yes, sir!” Ridcully brightened up. “That’s not a bad wheeze. There’s one or two people history could do without. Any idea how we can find the right ants?”

There was a philosophical wrongness about drawing a crocodile’s attention to the fact that there were a couple of kangaroos in the bar.

“Haven’t you noticed that by running away you end up in more trouble?” “Yes, but, you see, you can run away from that, too,” said Rincewind. “That’s the beauty of the system. Dead is only for once, but running away is for ever.”

“The reason this island’s so odd is that some rather daft god is messing around with it. That’s a pretty good explanation as far as I’m concerned.”

It was an amazing phrase. It was practically magical all by itself. It just . . . made things better. A shark’s got your leg? No worries. You’ve been stung by a jellyfish? No worries! You’re dead? She’ll be right! No worries! Oddly enough, it seemed to work.

It is very easy to get ridiculously confused about the tenses of time travel, but most things can be resolved by a sufficiently large ego.

“I’ve always thought sex was really a rather tasteless way of ensuring the continuity of the species,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, as they reached the beach. “I’m sure there could be something better. It’s all very . . . old-fashioned, to my mind. And far too energetic.”

I THINK PERHAPS YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. PEOPLE’S WHOLE LIVES DO PASS IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES BEFORE THEY DIE. THE PROCESS IS CALLED “LIVING.”

Logic could take you only so far, then you had to get out and hop.

“What?” said the Senior Wrangler. “Are you saying that before you apply for the job of housekeeper of a university you should seriously consider being eaten by sharks on the shores of some mysterious continent thousands of years before you are born?”

“You mean you’ve got me cornered and you aren’t going to arrest me?” he said. “We-ell, it wouldn’t look good in the ballad, would it?” said the guard. “You’ve got to think about these things.”

“We put all our politicians in prison as soon as they’re elected. Don’t you?” “Why?” “It saves time.”