Interesting Times
Terry Pratchett
We met Twoflower in the very first of Terry Pratchett's Disworld novels, The Color of Magic. He arrived in Ankh-Morpork as a tourist, introducing himself as being from the Agatean Empire, on the Counterweight Continent, the other side of the Discworld from Ank-Morpork. Twoflower returned home eventually (at the end of book 2, The Light Fantastic), after giving his magical luggage to Rincewind. Since then we have heard essentially nothing of the Agatean Empire, until Interesting Times. In response to a request for the Great Wizzard from the Empire, Unseen University sends Rincewind there.
The Agatean Empire is a sort of ill-defined amalgam of China and Japan. Like either one of those nations a century or two ago, the Empire is an autocratic state ruled in the name of an Emperor. Rincewind, the Great Wizzard (Wizzard is the label on Rincewind's hat), is drafted as the figurehead of a revolution.
Rincewind is conspicuously unenthusiastic about the whole idea of a revolution. This will surprise no one familiar with Rincewind, since "conspicuously unenthusiastic" is his default attitude to everything except running away from danger. One also surmises that Pratchett himself shares Rincewind's lack of enthusiasm for revolutions, since he puts excellent arguments in Rincewind's mouth and vindicates those arguments by events. (In fact, it seemed clear to me that Pratchett had Mao's revolution mind.)
You're probably wondering, "Does Twoflower appear?" He does. Indeed, he has two daughters, and they are important figures in the rcvolution.
Interesting Times is more overtly political than most Disworld novels, and the politics sometimes feels like serious commentary on our own world. Still Rincewind is always fun. I enjoyed it.
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