Interesting Times

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

MIGHTY BATTLES! REVOLUTION! DEATH! WAR! (AND HIS SONS TERROR AND PANIC, AND DAUGHTER CLANCY)

The oldest and most inscrutable empire on the Discworld is in turmoil, brought about by the revolutionary treatise What I did on My Holidays . Workers are uniting, with nothing to lose but their water buffaloes. Warlords are struggling for power. War (and Clancy) are spreading throughout the ancient cities.

And all that stands in the way of terrible doom for everyone is:

Rincewind the Wizard, who can't even spell the word 'wizard'...

Cohen the barbarian hero, five foot tall in his surgical sandals, who has had a lifetime's experience of not dying...

...and a very special butterfly.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Interesting Times Chapter One There is where the gods play games with the lives of men, on a board which is at one and the same time a simple playing area and the whole world. And Fate always wins. Fate always wins. Most of the gods throw dice but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been using two queens all along. Fate wins. At least, so it is claimed. Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been Fate.* Gods can take any form, but the one aspect of themselves they cannot change is their eyes, which show their nature. The eyes of Fate are hardly eyes at all -- just dark holes into an infinity speckled with what may be stars or, there again, may be other things. He blinked them, smiled at his fellow players in the smug way winners do just before they become winners, and said: "I accuse the High Priest of the Green Robe in the library with the double-handed axe." And he won. He beamed at them. "No one likeh a poor winner," grumbled Offler the Crocodile God, through his fangs. "It seems that I am favoring myself today," said Fate. "Anyone fancy something else?" The gods shrugged. "Mad Kings?" said Fate pleasantly. "Star-Crossed Lovers?" "I think we've lost the rules for that one," said Blind Io, chief of the gods. "Or Tempest-Wrecked Mariners?" "You always win," said Io. "Floods and Droughts?" said Fate. "That's an easy one." A shadow fell across the gaming table. The gods looked up. "Ah," said Fate. "Let a game begin," said the Lady. There was always an argument about whether the newcomer was a goddess at all. Certainly no one ever got anywhere by worshipping her, and she tended to turn up only where she was least expected, such as now. And people who trusted in her seldom survived. Any temples built to her would surely be struck by lightning. Better to juggle axes on a tightrope than say her name. just call her the waitress in the Last Chance saloon. She was generally referred to as the Lady, and her eyes were green; not as the eyes of humans are green, but emerald green from edge to edge. It was said to be her favorite color. "Ah," said Fate again. "And what game will it be?" She sat down opposite him. The watching gods looked sidelong at one another. This looked interesting. These two were ancient enemies. "How about..." she paused, "...Mighty Empires?" "Oh, I hate that one," said Offler, breaking the sudden silence. "Everyone dief at the end." "Yes," said Fate, "I believe they do." He nodded at the Lady, and in much the same voice as professional gamblers say "Aces high?" said, "The Fall of Great Houses? Destinies of Nations Hanging by a Thread?" "Certainly," she said. "Oh, good ." Fate waved a hand across the board. The Discworld appeared. "And where shall we play?" he said. "The Counterweight Continent," said the Lady. "Where five noble families have fought one another for centuries." "Really? Which families are these?" said Io. He had little involvement with individual humans. He generally looked after thunder and lightning, so from his point of view the only purpose of humanity was to get wet or, in occasional cases, charred. The Hongs, the Sungs, the Tangs, the McSweeneys and the Fangs." "Them? I didn't know they were noble," said lo. "They're all very rich and have had millions of people butchered or tortured to death merely for reasons of expediency and pride," said the Lady. The watching gods nodded solemnly. That was certainly noble behavior. That was exactly what they would have done. " McFweeneyf ?" said Offler. "Very old established family," said Fate. "Oh." "And they wrestle one another for the Empire," said Fate. "Very good. Which will you be?" The Lady looked at the history stretched out in front of them. "The Hongs are the most powerful. Even as we speak, they have taken yet more cities," she said. "I see they are fated to win" "So, no doubt, you'll pick a weaker family." Fate waved his hand again. The playing pieces appeared, and started to move around the board as if they had a fife of their own, which was of course the case. "But," he said, "we shall play without dice. I don't trust you with dice. You throw them where I can't see them. We will play with steel, and tactics, and politics, and war." The Lady nodded. Fate looked across at his opponent. "And your move?" he said. She smiled. "I've already made it." He looked down. "But I don't see your pieces on the board." "They're not on the board yet," she said. She opened her hand. There was something black and yellow on her palm. She blew on it, and it unfolded its wings. It was a butterfly. Fate always wins ... At least, when people stick to the rules. According to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle, chaos is found in, greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized. This is the butterfly of the storms. See the wings, slightly more ragged than those of the common fritillary In reality, thanks to the fractal nature of the universe, this means that those ragged edges are infinite -- in the same way that the edge of any rugged coastline, when measured to the ultimate microscopic level, is infinitely long -- or, if not infinite, then at least so close to it that Infinity can be seen on a clear day. *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 --t hat must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous. Interesting Times . Copyright © by Terry Pratchett. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

When the Agatean Empire requests the Great Wizzard, Lord Vetinari of Ankh-Morpork sends a pathetically inept wizard named Rincewind 6000 miles away to the Counterweight Continent to intercede. The latest novel in the satirical fantasy "Discworld" series; for fantasy collections with the series. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Discworld continues to spin merrily along in this new addition to Pratchett's successful series (begun with The Colour of Magic, 1983) about a magical world carried through space on the back of a giant turtle. Here, Rincewind the wizard is drafted to visit the Agatean Empire, which in Pratchett's hands is either a satire of Imperial China or a satire on how that China is handled by other fantasy writers, or possibly both (in Discworld there are few certainties). Arriving complete with the Luggage, Rincewind is dropped into the middle of a succession crisis that's complicated by the presence of Cohen the Barbarian, with his Silver Horde of superannuated barbarians, and a band of youthful revolutionaries, the Red Army. The plot that slowly emerges sees Cohen become Emperor and will hold Discworld fans' attention despite some of the satirical effects arising from a working knowledge of British popular culture. Pratchett is an acquired taste, but the acquisition seems easy, judging from the robust popularity of Discworld. Certainly there is more verbal elegance in this novel than in most humorous fantasy. Pratchett does try to satirize so many subjects at once here that he resembles the man who jumped on his horse and rode off in all directions, and so the book benefits from being read in small, bracing doses. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Book Review

More comic fantasy from Pratchett's Discworld (Men at Arms, 1996, etc.) featuring another aspect of the unending strife between humans, fates, and the god that ``generally looked after thunder and lightning, so from his point of view the only purpose of humanity was to get wet or, in occasional cases, charred.'' This time, the incompetent ``wizard'' Rincewind, hero of several of the earliest Discworld wingdings, makes a reappearance, along with other favorite characters such as the demented tourist, Twoflower, the unpredictable, multilegged Luggage--apparently it's found a mate--and Cohen the Barbarian. Fun, especially for those susceptible to Pratchett-inspired nostalgia.