The Last Continent
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| Terry Pratchett The Discworld series 22nd novel – 6th Rincewind story  |
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| Outline | |
| Characters: | Rincewind Unseen University Staff |
| Locations: | FourEcks Unseen University |
| Motifs: | Australia, Evolution |
| Publication details | |
| Year of release: | 1998 |
| Original publisher: | Doubleday, London |
| Hardback ISBN: | ISBN 0-385-40989-3 |
| Paperback ISBN: | ISBN 0-06-105907-2 |
| Other details | |
| Awards: | |
| Notes: | |
The Last Continent is the twenty-second Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, first published in 1998, that parodies Australian people and culture, as well as the famous Crocodile Dundee and Mad Max movies and the popular Australian song Waltzing Matilda.
[edit] Plot summary
The story opens years after the events of Interesting Times, in which Rincewind was magically transported to the forsaken continent of XXXX due to a miscalculation made by the Unseen University wizards. Rincewind has been surviving by falling in water holes, looking for grubs under rocks, and befriending indigenous peoples (up to a point, since Rincewind would invariably talk about the weather after he got the hang of the language, a subject on which the native tribes were apparently sensitive to, subsequently driving him out). Rincewind soon meets the magical kangaroo Scrappy, being sent by the creator of FourEcks. Scrappy explains to Rincewind that he is fated to bring back "The Wet," meaning the rain, citing that he is the reason for the eons-long drought. Scrappy says that the continent is unfinished, and time and space will be an eternal anomaly there until it is finished, i.e. the rain is brought, back and shows Rincewind cavepaintings of Wizards.
Meanwhile, the senior wizards (made up of Archancellor Mustrum Ridcully, the Dean, the Bursar, The Chair of Indefinite Studies, the Lecturer in Recent Runes and the Senior Wrangler) and Ponder Stibbons in the Unseen University in Ankh Morpork are trying to find a cure for the Librarian's magical malady (which causes him to transform into a native object, such as a book when near a library, whenever he sneezes) contracted from his work in the UU's magical library. The wizards soon find out that the books in the Library become hostile and attack (being magical books in a magical library, this is in fact a threat) when not in the librarian's care. The wizards cannot however cure the Librarian without knowing his name. The Librarian, being also the archivist, destroyed any evidence of his true name since he believed the wizards would attempt to turn him human again, as he rather enjoyed his orangutan body (brought on by a magical accident years before). The Lecturer in Recent Runes suggest they interrogate Rincewind, as he once worked closely with the Librarian and seemed to know more about him than anyone else. The wizards then decide to find the continent of XXXX (so named because no one has any clue about what its real name is) where they had previous sent Rincewind on accident. The wizards find the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography's study, but no sign of the professor himself. They then find a magical shift in space leading from the professor's bathroom to a tropical island thousands of years in the past.
Thousands of years later, Rincewind attempts to run away from his destiny, but in fact runs towards it. With the assistance of Scrappy (although Rincewind doesn't know it) Rincewind eventually ends up wrongfully arrested for sheep theft and taken to Bugarup, where he was hoping to find a ship to escape on. A gigantic circular storm surrounding FourEcks prevents any ships from leaving however. The people of Bugarup are enthusiastic for Rincewind since they regard sheepthieves as folk heroes and encourage him to escape, while not actually allowing him to. Rincewind looks up at the ceiling of his holding cell and finds a message there telling him to check the hinges on the door. Rincewind does so and finds that he is able to lift the door off its hinges and escape.
The wizards on the tropical island become trapped when Mrs. Whitlow, the head maid, brings them their early breakfast and inadvertently closes the window that lead back into the Professors study. The wizards soon encounter plants that rapidly evolve to suit their means but do not question the turn of events ( apart from Ponder) until a large Dinosaur evolves into a chicken in front of their eyes. After finding a plant based boat, the wizards start to question their surroundings even more and the god of Evolution, who has been causing the events, then turns up and helps explain things a bit. He created the plant so that the wizards would leave him in peace, as the plants are going haywire attempting to evolve to suit the wizards every needs. Ponder stays to help the god while the wizards load up on provisions and leaves. Ponder soon catches up with them, as he discovered that the God was fixated with beetles and builds the cockroach as his primary project and not humans, as Ponder believed. The wizards then reach FourEcks and soon meet the Creator of FourEcks (not of the Disc) in the process of creating it by way of impressionistic cave paintings. The wizards bicker over the Creator's technique and inadvertently create the duck-billed platypus. The librarian meanwhile steals the Creator's bullroarer and spins it, causing the drought Rincewind is in the process of stopping. The wizards are then frozen in time for thousands of years by the stray magic left around from creating the continent.
Rincewind having escaped from gaol, invents the Peach Nellie, and then meets up with a group of female impersonators, Darleen and Letitia and a female, Neilette. Rincewind then meets up with his magical trunk, the infamous Luggage, who rescues him from the watch.
[edit] Translations
- Последният континент (Bulgarian)
- Poslední kontinent (Czech)
- Het jongste werelddeel (Dutch)
- Viimane manner (Estonian)
- Le Dernier continent (French)
- Heiße Hüpfer (German)
- Последний континент (Russian)
- El País del Fin del Mundo (Spanish)
- Ostatni kontynent (Polish)
[edit] External links
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