Old Heroes Don't Die (The Last Hero - Terry Pratchett)

Member Name: Pingu

Product:	The Last Hero - Terry Pratchett
Date:	13/11/01 (112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, Funny, Funny

Disadvantages: Not for beginners, Slightly old hat

I was about to write a bad review about this book. I was about to say how much of a disappointment it was - when I found out there was another Pratchett / Kidby collaberation on the way I was expecting a repeat of the fantasticness of Eric, and Last Hero fell somewhat short. I was about to say how formulaic the book was.

But then I thought, well I've more or less kept up with the comic fantasy world this year - the Tom HOlts, Andrew Harmans, Robert Rankins and other wannabes - so what have I read that was better. The answer was, only the other Terry Pratchett novels on my annual re-reading of them. Nothing else came close - in fact Tom Holt's last two offerings were such utter tosh that I won't be reading any more.

The thing is that Pratchett is in a league entirely of his own making. When a new book comes along my expectations are based entirely upon his previous massive brilliance. When a book falls slightly short of my expectations - and we all have off days, even Terry Pratchett - I naturally feel a bit disappointed. This disappointment is easy to confuse with the gut reaction to a BAD product, hence my urge to write a bad review. But in fact Last Hero is a very good book, a brilliant book even - it's just not the best Terry Pratchett book. It's still better than anything else that pretends to be comic sci-fi.

Having said that, I must detail why it was a little disappointing.

The story is about Cohen the Barbarian, who first appeared in The Light Fantastic. Now into his eighties, and decidedly past it, he decides that he’s ticked off with the gods for the way they run the world – specifically the way they’ve let him get old. So he determines to blow them up, his excuse being that man stole fire from the gods, so he is going to give it back. On the other side of the disc the Patrician has the problem of putting together a task force to stop Cohen, for if the gods die then the ice giants wi
ll be freed and overrun the disc. He asks Leonard of Quirm (Pratchett’s Leonardo Da Vinci) to come up with a way to get the task force across the disc in a couple of days, and Leonard comes up with the Disc’s first spacecraft, which will orbit the Disc and drop the task force on the other side. So the other plot, in parallel with Cohen’s, is the rapid development of a space programme and gives Pratchett the opportunity to send up every space-film convention ever, including a lampoon of Apollo13 (Ankh-Morpork, we have a problem).

The problem is not with writing style. In that area Pratchett is as on form as he ever was - some of the little touches are just inspired; he can still use an isolated word to say more than a whole paragraph.

The biggest problem is the structure. It just isn't satisfying. I get the feeling Pratchett is now beyond the point where he can write miniatures. His ideas are simply too big. The book starts exactly like one of his novels, with a number of parallel strands, which you know are going to intertwine somewhere along the way. The problem is they develop in the same detail as they would in a novel. About half way through the book I found myself thinking, how on earth is he going to sort all of this out? The answer was that after 150 pages he simply put, ‘The End,’ and stopped writing. Well not quite, but that’s more or less how it feels. The development of the space programme is described in great detail, the journey to Cori Celeste takes about 100 pages, then when everyone arrives there the whole confrontation is sorted in about 3 pages flat. Suddenly everyone starts acting very out of character in order to let the whole thing end conveniently, which is extremely unsatisfying.

Another problem is that a lot of Pratchett’s humour comes from the development of characters, not necessarily from the plot itself. This book is no exception, but it brings the added problem tha
t characters are thrown together from completely separate strands of his writing, and you need really to understand all of their histories to get most of the jokes. For instance the way Rincewind volunteers for the task force. He says something to the effect of, “I’m volunteering because if I don’t fate will chase me down in the from of some ridiculous Deus ex Machina and I’ll end up on the mission anyway, so volunteering will save me the bother of trying to run the other way first.” If you’ve read The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Eric, Interesting Times and Sourcery you may just get why this fatalism is so funny. So go and read them first.

Finished? OK. Now Carrot. The humour of his character derives from the way he always seems to be naïve of the subtleties of a situation, and no-one’s ever quite sure whether he’s genuinely ignorant or just appearing to be naïve for his own purposes. Then there’s his indomitable optimism and belief that people are basically nice, and the way that people end up behaving the way he expects them to. So, if you could just go and read Guards Guards, Men at Arms, The Fifth Elephant, etc. etc.

Then, of course, there’s the Patrician and the way he always seems to be ahead of everyone. He’s in about 10 or 11 of the novels.

Basically you need to have read everything except the novels about death, and those about the witches, otherwise you’ll miss nine tenths of the humour. This isn’t a book you can simply pick up and find funny, because the characters aren’t developed at length in it. Instead the humour comes from knowing them well. Which isn’t a crime. Pratchett must be allowed to develop people over a series of novels, but the melting pot of characters in this one make it a very tall order for the beginner.

The final problem is that the ‘Pratchett Lampoon’ is starting to wear thin. In many of h
is books the plot centres on the development of a part of our civilisation, or society, as it might happen in the magical environment of the Disc. In Moving Pictures it was the film industry, developing from the revolving picture drum to Oscar ceremonies in a few weeks. In The Truth it was the tabloid press, in the Guards books the police force. In The Last Hero it’s the space programme. The problem is that the joke is always the same. Although Pratchett moves to different pastures I don’t think he’s recognised what it is that is so funny. It’s not the tabloid press, or the movie industry that are inherently funny, but the way that, on the Disc, magic replaces the physics of a thing. For instance the camera doesn’t work by exposing light sensitive paper, but by having little demons painting pictures very quickly. It gets metaphysical as well. For instance the driving forces of greed, fame and power which drive our film industry, are personified in the dark spirit of Oscar.

For a while this was a fresh technique. But it’s become formulaic. Take an industry and develop it on the Disc, replacing some of its workings with magic. The joke is always the same, so that, although the books are about different things, they leave exactly the same feeling. The development of space travel here doesn’t actually add anything new.

Well there you go. I did write a negative review after all. So can I just stress again that this is actually a great book. A brilliant book. It’s still better than anything by anyone else. It’s just not for beginners, and it’s not Pratchett’s greatest work, but still well worth reading.

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