Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett

" They have a curse… They say… May you live in INTERESTING TIMES " Take one hopeless Wizard with an advanced sense of preservation. Call him Rincewind. Have him somehow save the world several times without ever getting the credit for it. Have him in innumerable tight spots with no way out but have him stay alive throughout everything. Place him on a remote island where nothing can possibly happen to him, and where he can enjoy his favourite state of being - boredom (because nothing is trying to kill him / eat him / rip his limbs off). Take a university full of Wizards. Inhabit this university with several ...

“May You Live in Interesting Times”. This is the strongest curse that the people of the ‘Counterweight Continent’ can muster. You see rules and tradition run their lives. This land of communism sets great store in examinations indeed, a 3000 word thesis and a verse of poetry is required to become a gardener in these parts. However, the peasants long for freedom (or at least a longer piece of string for their water buffalo). This results in the ‘Red Army’ uniting to succeed in “Untimely Demise To The Forces of Oppression”. How will they do this you may well ask? Well with the forces of good on their side and the power of “The Great Wizzard” how can they ...

On the Counterweight Continent, gold is found in such abundance that it's as valuable to the people there as dirt is to the citizens of Ankh-Morpork. In Ankh-Morpork, a little gold would go a long long way. The Agatean Empire have nothing Ankh-Morpork can afford, and Ankh-Morpork has nothing they want. Therefore short and infrequent messages are exchanged between the two rulers by means of a Pointless Albatross. When the Emperor of the Agatean Empire sends a message to Lord Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, asking for the "Great Wizzard", Havelock Vetinari asks Mustrum Ridcully (the Archchancellor of Unseen Unversity) who exactly they want. ...