The Last Continent

[Editor's Note: The following is a combined review with JINGO.] -- These two entries in Pratchett's popular Discworld series feature the usual crowd of eccentric people, drarves, trolls, werewolves, wizards, assassins, foreigners, and zombies, who inhabit the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork on the flat-earth Discworld, carried through space by the giant tortoise, Atuin. Hilarity and satire rule the day. In JINGO, two nations almost go to war over the appearance of a sometimes-here, sometimes not island. In THE LAST CONTINENT, the wizard Rincewind goes to "Australia," which has dried out, so he has to go back in time and encounters the god of evolution--you get the idea. Both are enormously entertaining tidbits, nicely rendered by reader Tony Robinson, whose wry, lively, breezy British accents vary with the characterizations. Each character is distinct; he uses pitch, pacing, and a nasal twang to draw out both the character and the humor. D.R.W. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine