In the first part of The Last Hero<\/i>, the leaders of Ankh-Morpork join up to tackle a bizarre problem: someone is going to try to end the world. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For talk of sexual assault\/rape<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Oh, friends, IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S TIME FOR ME TO START A NEW DISCWORLD<\/i> BOOK! This is always an exciting time for me, but in this case, it is extra<\/i> special. Let me first thank all the wonderful folks in Amsterdam who orchestrated giving me a copy of The Last Hero<\/i> through my boyfriend, who hid it from me so I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see it. The whole thing was wrapped in red paper as well, so even when I was moving and had to pack it, I literally could not tell what was on the cover. Thus, when I got it out of my room just minutes before recording the video for this review, it was the very first time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d seen it. I DIDN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T REALIZE IT WAS FULLY ILLUSTRATED!!!! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen Paul Kidby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work before at both of the Discworld<\/i> cons that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been to, as well as through many of you in the comments.<\/p>\n
Now, I get to experience all of this within the context of a new story AND for the first time! So, since this is my first illustrated Discworld<\/i> book, I want to make sure that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m commenting on both the story and<\/i> the art, sort of like what I was doing for The Science of Discworld<\/i>. HERE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S HOW I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M DOING THIS.<\/p>\n
The Art<\/b><\/p>\n
What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most striking to me about Kidby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s style is that as fantastical as the topic is, it feels so visceral<\/i>. It comes off as realistic while still being exaggerated, as if it exists as a bridge between what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d consider more traditional fantasy art and something that would exist in the real world. Now, I feel like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a decent book\/television reviewer because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I know. I am not<\/i> an artist who works in this specific medium, so I admit to having virtually no real understanding of technique or theory.<\/p>\n
But here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I most wanted to talk about: Since I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not naturally a visual person, I am so thrilled<\/i> that I get to see what these characters look like through someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eyes. I imagine that Pratchett gave guidance for a lot of this, and I actually find \u00e2\u20ac\u0153canonical\u00e2\u20ac\u009d art for characters to be super comforting because my brain has such a hard time visualizing anything<\/i>. Rincewind looked a little different in my mind, but Cohen is very close to how I imagined him. The best part, however, was the view of Ankh-Morpork. I now understand the comparisons to London. IT LOOKS LIKE THE TWISTING THAMES, OH MY GOD!!! And this shit helps a great<\/i> deal for me. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been following along for a while, you might remember how much of a kick I got out of the maps posted in the comments during my read-through of The Lord of the Rings. <\/i>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like that! I love having the imagery in my head!!!<\/p>\n
The Last Hero<\/b><\/p>\n
Since this book isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as long as most Discworld<\/i> novels, Pratchett really gets to the point, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a hell of a lot of fun. The conflict is introduced in this first part, and holy shit<\/i>, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ridiculous: Cohen the Barbarian is going to end the world.<\/p>\n
Well, we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite know if that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what is going to happen, but I get why<\/i> the Patrician is leading the leaders of the city to try and stop him. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the Prometheus myth in reverse: Cohen is going to give back<\/i> the fire that was stolen from the gods. Of course, given that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a hero and can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do anything subtle ever<\/i>, that means he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got something called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thunder Clay\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that will blow up all of Dunmanifestin. And an explosion in the most magically-charged area of the Discworld will probably destroy all<\/i> of the Disc, so\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 yeah. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a big deal.<\/p>\n
How this came to be is a mystery, and I also don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get why it was necessary to kidnap a minstrel in order to accomplish this. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a high chance that Cohen isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> planning to actually blow up the city of the gods. I suspect that the gods would probably try to stop that if it was as serious as the humans think it is, but perhaps they enjoy the game getting real<\/i> close to them. I mean, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gotta be entertaining to watch the wizards, the guild heads, and the Patrician struggle with all the obstacles in their way. They can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do magic near Cori Celesti, so that means they have to travel there by normal means. Even then, doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that imply that Cohen has a huge<\/i> head start??? HOW ARE THEY GOING TO CATCH UP TO HIM?<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a great start to this story, but there is an odd, unnecessary moment smack dab in the middle of it. I am most especially sensitive to what the text says here given what our society has been having a conversation about these days, and this line in particular did not age well at all<\/i>:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not rape, I believe,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Mr. Betteridge, finding a rock on which he could stand. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not in the case of Cohen the Barbarian. Ravishing, possibly.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There is a difference?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more a matter of approach, I understand,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said the historian. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe there were ever any actual complaints.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Y I K E S that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come off well, does it? Sexual assault doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t disappear because no one complained about it; the act still happened<\/i>. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know why another joke of this nature appears here after the ones in Interesting Times<\/i> because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not exactly a subject ripe for humor, especially not from this perspective. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to hoping it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the last of its kind in this book.<\/p>\n https:\/\/youtu.be\/J-NkStoFQEA<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the first part of The Last Hero, the leaders of Ankh-Morpork join up to tackle a bizarre problem: someone is going to try to end the world. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,248,539],"class_list":["post-4383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-last-hero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}