The Light Fantastic

That rare event, a comedy sequel (to The Colour of Magic, 1983) that is twistier, plottier, and funnier than its predecessor. ""The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn't sure it was worth all the effort."" Sobegins Pratchett's latest yarn about Disc Earth, which rests on the backs of four huge elephants, who stand upon the shell of A'Tuin the Great Turtle; the latter is heading through space towards a huge, malevolent red star, but nobody knows why. Rincewind the failed wizard, his companion Twoflower the naive tourist, and Twoflower's aggressive luggage (a sapient pearwood box that trots around on hundreds of tiny legs), having fallen off the Disc at the end of Magic, now find themselves safe back on the Disc--thanks to the Octavo, the highly magical repository of the Eight Great Spells. One of the spells has taken up residence in Rincewind's head (""The spell wasn't a demanding lodger. It just sat there like an old toad at the bottom of a pond""), and so most of the Disc's wizards are chasing after Rincewind to try and get the spell back. The rest is riotously impossible to summarize but includes warrior princesses, Cohen the Barbarian, trolls, demons, Death, Druids, false teeth, argumentative spells, flying rocks, and talking trees. You won't stop grinning except to chuckle or sometimes roar with laughter. The most hilarious fantasy since--come to think of it, since Pratchett's previous outing. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.