Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett

 

Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"What I did on My Holidays"
On the surface an innocent account of the travels and adventures of Twoflower outside of the Agatean Empire but in reality a tool to be used by the unscrupulous to grow a revolution and then a counter revolution leaving once again one man in charge with the power of life and death over everyone.
Through various machinations Rincewind (unknowingly the subject of a game between Fate and The Lady) visits the Empire to find he has a big role to play and as usual becomes more of a pawn to be used by not only the Emperor but also the manipulative Lord Hung, Pretty Butterfly (a young revolutionary) and unexpectedly Cohen the Barbarian and the Silver Horde who have plans for the Empire. The Luggage naturally follows Rincewind and has a major life changing incident while Rincewind runs, sprints, ducks and dodges his way out of life threatening situations but not unexpectedly becomes the focus of something wonderful before Hex and the University magically return him home but not his home.
Interesting Times was a decent novel and while I am a fan of Rincewind his part in Discworld kinda fell away as Terry introduced more characters and found his footing and large scale storytelling. That said the glimpse into the Empire was entertaining, more of Twoflower and his family was most rewarding and of course Cohen is always a pleasure especially when fleshed out.


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