Rating: 
Summary: Astoundingly great for most authors. Very good for Pratchett
Review: The Last Continent was hand made some time after the rest of the Disc (as seen in Eric). Named XXXX by the people of the Circle Sea, who believed it to be mythical, it is explicitly _not_ Discworld Australia. It is however vaguely australian.When Rincewind the "Wizzard" enters this mileau, he finds he has caused it to be dry for thousands of years. In XXXX, you see, time turns into space and space turns into Vegemite. The beliefs of the Aborigines are combined with cutting-edge quantum mechanics as the assembled wizards of UU cause a time paradox I really can't say too much about. Suffice to say that our magic-impaired coward is destined to become the Great FourEcksian Hero. I know Terry Pratchett is fond of Australia, and it really comes through. Some of the jokes may come across as national stereotypes, but surely not more so than Genua (Southern US) or even Lancre (Northern England). In fact I want to know why there's no country on the Disc that's "vaugely scottish"! A real beaut of a book, mate.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointing
Review: This is the eleventh or twelvth Pratchett book I've read, and it is by far the worst. That's somewhat misleading, though, because it's the only bad Pratchett book I've read at all.
I'm not australian, but I did catch on to many of the australian references. The problem was that most of them weren't funny. Pratchett's humor has always lain with the insight and subtlety with which he makes his cultural references and satire tie into the situation at hand. However, in The Last Continent, there is no "situation at hand". The story rambles on and on, seemingly without point. People and things come and go without notice or reason, often simply to fit the motif of australian references. The story of the wizards and the story of Rincewind don't converge until the very last pages of the book, and the convergence is not even explained (how rincewind knows to find the cave and then to draw in it). The reason for Rincewind's problem is not explained at any stage (why the librarian changes shape, why the wizards' presence in the past is causing the present to shift at random, why it doesn't rain, etc).
The humor that does exist in the book is shallow in nearly every case. Often it's just inane bickering between the wizards, which elicits cheap laughs, but doesn't grab one's attention. The humor isn't structured at all, which is Pratchett's normal approach. In his other books, the humor develops around some reference. Here they are mostly just one liners. In The Last Continent, the only time this kind of humor develops is on the topic the wizards' sexual repression, which is entirely unrelated to the story's problem.
I strongly recommend other Pratchett books such as Jingo, Small Gods, or Reaper Man for a much more sophisticated example of fantasy satire.
Rating:
Summary: With Any Luck, the Last Rincewind Book
Review: This was the first Pratchett book I read, and my original review is on Amazon; I still stand by it, but have revised my rating downward after reading the rest of the Discworld novels. It is funny in parts and full of pop-culture references, but does not hold together as a story. There isn't much plot, or, rather, there is far too much to pay attention to. Rincewind is not a character in this book so much as an excuse to roam around Australia; the wizards of Unseen University show up, but if you don't already know them, or even if you do, you'll find their characters quite poorly differentiated. _Interesting Times_ and _The Light Fantastic_ are better Rincewind novels, but I would recommend spending your valuable free time reading the the City Watch or Witches Discworld novels instead.
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