Which is the most ethical choice? Other variations include increasing the number of potential victims, making the single person a murderer, the lever puller's own daughter, someone who is terminally ill, etc - all variations an attempt to find the dividing line between right and wrong. It wonderfully caps Rincewind's series of adventures, neatly and directly tying up his Disc-spanning journey that began in the foundational The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ It's what ordin'ry people remember that matters. It's songs and sayin's. It doesn't matter how you live and die, it's how the bards wrote it down." Born Terence David John Pratchett, Sir Terry Pratchett sold his first story when he was thirteen, which earned him enough money to buy a second-hand typewriter. His first novel, a humorous fantasy entitled The Carpet People, appeared in 1971 from the publisher Colin Smythe.

Pratchett’s perceptive and laugh-out-loud Discworld series is a literary phenomenon. And in The Last Hero, one aging hero with a grudge decides enough is enough. Beautifully illustrated throughout by Paul Kidby. But at least they are just bored and not as boring as the real life equivalences in politics, so what lies closer than to replay some classic mythology as a real life RPG, the perfect hobby for silver barbarians with some terrorist attitude to go with a big, Discworld shattering bang. Because of the potentially ultra fatal consequences of their plan to reach immortality, or at least a satisfying end worthy of and close to each barbarians´ wet death dream, Vetinari unleashes Leonard of Quirms´ ingenuity what enables Rincewind, Carrot, and The Librarian to go one a, hopefully for the world, successful hellish road and air trip. The bard writing the story of Cohen and the Silver Hordes' adventures is a takeoff on the writers of the sagas and epic poetry from the Odyssey by Homer to the Aeneid by Virgil to Beowulf and the Poetic Edda of the Middle Ages; Wulf an obvious parallel to Beowulf. The Caves of Dread guarded by "fearsome monsters" has connections to Homer's Odyssey and the story of the Cyclops. Pratchett pokes fun at the way these epics were written; rambling on about the weather, reversing the sentence structure and taking forever to get to the action. Meanwhile, the Horde have already reached Cori Celesti. The gods allow them to sneak in disguised as gods themselves, despite (or perhaps because of) their having been betrayed to the gods by Evil Harry. The Horde suspect that the gods have been manipulating their entire quest. Fate challenges Cohen to roll a 7 on a standard 6-sided die. Cohen cheats Fate by slicing the die in-half in mid-air with his sword; the two halves land with the 6 and 1 both facing up. Cohen also notes that even if he does not succeed in killing the gods, someone will have tried, so someone will eventually try harder.Vetinari says to Leonard, 'I recall an old story about a ship that was pulled by swans and flew all the way to --". One of the earliest published accounts of space travel is the 1638, story The Man In The Moone, by Bishop Francis Godwin of Hereford in which a Spaniard travels to the moon in a chariot drawn by swans. It stars the legendary Cohen the Barbarian, a legend in his own lifetime. Cohen can remember when a hero didn't have to worry about fences and lawyers and civilisation, and when people didn't tell you off for killing dragons. But he can't always remember, these days, where he put his teeth... The motto of the explorers is "Morituri Nolumus Mori" (literally, "we don't want to die, to die") but is intended to mean "We who are about to die don't want to". The original quote is "Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant"- "Hail Emperor, We who are about to die salute you", by Suetonius in De Vita Caesarum ("The Life of the Caesars". It was reportedly used in the presence of the Emperor Claudius in AD 52 by the gladiators in the amphitheater and although widely quoted was not actually recorded anywhere else in Roman history. Cohen can remember many things, the time when heroes didn’t need to worry about offending people or be concerned by the ruminations of anyone in the legal industry and he wasn’t that concerned about civilisation. The thing that he was struggling to remember though, was where he’d left his teeth.

When Ridcully and his fellow priests meet to discuss what to do about Cohen returning fire to the Gods, they argue about the shape of the conference table. This is a reference to the Arthurian legend with the story of the table being made round so that all would be treated as equal. More currently it is a shot at the famous Paris Peace talks in 1968 regarding the seating arrangements of the various sides in the Vietnam War. With them is a whiny, terrified bard, whom they have kidnapped so that he can write the saga of their quest. Along the way, they are joined by Evil Harry Dread (the last Dark Lord) and Vena the Raven-haired (an elderly heroine who has now gone grey). The heroes are disillusioned with the way their lives have turned out—having conquered the Empire, they have nothing left to do but die in comfort—and are angry for having been allowed to grow old, rather than dying in battle as most of their friends did. They decided to go out on the quest after one of the Horde members choked to death on a cucumber. Evil Harry is just as angry; despite his efforts to give his opponents the sporting chance that an Evil Overlord should, they will not follow the Code by allowing him to escape in return. The late great Sir Terry's Conan tribute to Robert E Howard what happens to super men when they get old & there teeth fall out this old man Steptoe with muscles. But the extra special illustrations that give this book that WOW!' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐There's nothing about this story I didn't love. The dialogues and action sequences were great, and I loved all the mythology references and parallels to our actual history. There's really only enough material here for a story of exactly this length, but despite its brevity it's still got that special brand of Pratchett profoundness that all his best novels do. The Last Hero takes a spoofing yet poignant look at god and hero worship, destiny, the birth of legends, cultural memory, and coming to terms with aging and mortality, but wanting to leave a mark on the world. In the grand scheme of things, it may not be as substantial a volume as some others, but I found it delightful. The elderly heroine who joins the Horde, Vena the Raven-Haired, is a parody of Xena, Warrior Princess, and Kidby draws her wearing the same style of armour typical of comic and computer game heroines in general and Xena in particular. Second, this book is a Terry Pratchett novel. It is witty and thoughtful and merry and clever and often laugh-out-loud funny. Just plain wonderful