The Last Hero

The Last Hero is the first Discworld story wherein Pratchett varied from the normal novel format. This book was published in a large format and was illustrated by Paul Kidby. It is much shorter than the average Discworld story. After this entry (number 27 overall) we find the Young Adult titles interspersed with the regular series.

With the Last Hero Pratchett brought together two characters I have always felt would make a great team. Those being Captain Carrot and Rincewind. Unfortunately this story feels a bit phoned in. Since we have in effect 4 characters in play (add Cohen the Barbarian and Leonard of Quirm to the cast) the story never really settles on one main protagonist. We have grown accustomed to Carrot being a secondary character but Rincewind occupies so much space he feels out of place as a second or third stringer.

The story itself is quite fun. Cohen and his Silver Horde are afraid of dying a normal boring death and thus head out to return fire (actually high explosives) to the gods. Vetinari gets wind of this and realizes that if the Horde are successful it will be the end of the Discworld. Thus Leonard, Carrot, and Rincewind are sent via “the Kite” (a true space fairing ship) to try and stop the Horde. We actually get to cover a lot of ground in the Discworld and interactions with the gods are always amusing.

Stephen Briggs usually does a great job on this recordings for the audiobooks in this series. This time around however, I felt that his Rincewind was more a bumbling idiot than the sage coward that he truly is. All in all this was a fun little entry in the canon of the Discworld. I need to get a hold of a printed copy as I am sure the illustrations add a lot. This feels like a fluff piece though, definitely not Pratchett at his best, I give it a 3/5.