Posted by I am pulling this series back from the grave. The last one I posted was in 2018 and it’s time to finish the series (reviews that is, I’ve already re-read the Discworld series to death).
Interesting Times is part of the Wizard’s storyline and it’s focused on Rincewind rather than the antics of the University wizards as a whole. I have never gravitated towards Rincewind as a character, he’s just never grabbed me in the same way that the “main character” from other storylines have, (Death, Granny/Nanny, Vimes, Moist, Tiffany etc) and so the Wizards have become my least re-read storyline, only going back to them when I do a 1-41 sequential read through like I’m doing now.
The Agatean Empire makes up the Counterweight continent. It’s usually a mutually agreed upon stance that the two continents will do their best to ignore each other’s existence. The Agatean creed says that everything outside their walls is not in-fact, “real”. Anything or anyone existing outside their empire is a ghost and to think or say otherwise is treason.
Anyway, Two Flower (Who appears in the first two novels) went back home to the Agatean Empire after visiting Ankh-Morpork and wrote a dangerous book about how great Anhk-Morpork is, how much freedom they have, and how everyone should maybe possibly consider a rebellion. He also wrote about how this great Wizzard is and how he was the most powerful magic user in all the Disc. And thus, Rincewind finds himself involuntarily hurtled over to the Agatean Empire. Naturally, he runs into Cohen the Barbarian and his gang of old fogies called the Silver Horde as they try to raid and pillage which ends up as a Plot B in itself.
This is probably among my least favorite wizard books which is itself my least favorite sub-series, lol. Oh well, with 41 books I can’t be over the moon with every single one of them. I didn’t much like Plot A since it’s Rincewind heavy… and I just didn’t find plot B to be to my taste either which can sometimes save a book if I’m not into Plot A. Cohen being one of those characters that like Rincewind, I just didn’t connect with… so combining the two characters I connect with the least into a novel was never bound to be my favorite. That said, I did like getting to see the Agatean Empire since it was mostly a mystery up until this point. I’m always happy any time I get to see corners of the Disc that aren’t usually written about. I also find it interesting to see events from one book carry over to the next since these are largely episodic and stand alone novels by design.
As per usual, the writing was great imho. Although some jokes definitely wouldn’t go over now a’ days. This is one of those books that didn’t age well by comparison to the rest of the series, mostly because of Cohen and the Silver Horde and their ridiculously lude jokes. I do want to point out, however, that Ridcully was doing the “checks notes” joke way back when.
This is a strange note to come back on, but this is probably why I stalled out the last time, lol. Next up is Maskerade which features the Witches <3 <3 <3
Ratings:
- Plot: 11/15
- Characters: 12/15
- World Building: 13/15
- Writing: 14/15
- Pacing: 11/15
- Originality: 12/15
- Enjoyment: 6/10
Final Score: 79/100 or 4/5 stars on Goodreads