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{{Infobox book
The 22nd ''[[Discworld]]'' novel and the sixth in the Rincewind theme. Was written at the same time as ''[[Discworld/The Science of Discworld|The Science of Discworld]]'' and there is some obvious relationship, such as the mention of Slood and the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet.▼
| image =
| caption =
| author = Terry Pratchett
| central theme = Creators are exempt from the rules of time
| elevator pitch = The wizards want Rincewind to help their out-of-shape librarian - but he's in the desert while they're stuck in a prehistoric paradise. What kind of name is Mono Island, anyway?
| genre = Fantasy
| franchise = Discworld
| preceded by = Jingo
| followed by = Carpe Jugulum
| publication date = 1998
}}
▲The 22nd ''[[Discworld]]'' novel and the sixth in the Rincewind theme. Was written at the same time as ''[[
At Unseen University, the wizards are concerned as the Librarian has contracted a form of magical flu which interferes with his morphic field, turning him into random beings and objects every time he sneezes. In order to cure him of these transformations, they need to know his real name, but he refuses to tell them as he's afraid someone will turn him back into a human. The wizards realize that beside the Librarian, only Rincewind knows this name.
Unfortunately, the events of ''[[
Back in Ankh-Morpork, the wizards, looking for the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography to help them navigate to
Meanwhile, Rincewind travels haphazardly across
Will Rincewind bring back the rain? Will the wizards find their way back home? Will Ponder Stibbons discover the truth about evolution on the Discworld? And what's up with that weird kangaroo guy?
{{tropelist|page={{SUBPAGENAME}}}}
* [[Airport Novel]]: Referenced/parodied when it's stated that any novel taken to a beach will spontaneously turn into a [[Doorstopper]] conspiracy thriller with [[Mad Lib Thriller Title|at least one Greek letter in the title]]. The Lecturer in Recent Runes' book turns into ''The Omega Conspiracy''.
* [[Australian Wildlife]]: disturbingly accurate in that [[Everything Trying to Kill You|Everything Really Does Try To Kill You]] down under. Yes, this includes the spiders, the snakes, the kangaroos, the koalas ''and'' the earth itself. Also, a surprisingly accurate analogy of the Melbourne underworld (... and no, sadly enough, this is ''not'' a joke).
* [[Author Filibuster]]: There's a brief one (also referenced in ''[[
* [[Bigger on the Inside]]: The Bugarup University tower is about twenty feet high from the outside, and about twenty feet high when you're climbing it. When you look out from the top, however, you're half a mile above ground.
* [[Break the Haughty]]/[[Break the Cutie]]: Ponder Stibbons penultimate [[Break the Haughty]] crossed with [[Break the Cutie]] comes in this book, courtesy of A) being stranded on an island which has some very strange ideas about evolutionary process, and B) being stranded on aforementioned island with [[Driven to Madness|Ridcully and the UU faculty]].
{{quote|
'''Senior Wrangler''': Stibbons found some soft-boiled eggs.
'''Dean''': What a useful young man he is. Where did he find them?
'''Senior Wrangler''': On a tree
'''Dean''': A soft-boiled-egg tree? You'll be telling me next he found a spoon tree...
'''Senior Wrangler''': Of course not.
'''Dean''': Good.
'''Senior Wrangler''': It's a bush.
'''Dean''': A bush that fruits spoons...
'''Senior Wrangler''': Young Stibbons said it makes perfect sense, Dean. After all, he said, [[Sanity Slippage|we'd picked them because they're useful, and then spoons are always getting lost.]] [[Despair Event Horizon|Then he burst into tears.]] }}
** Of course, [[It Got Worse|It Gets Worse]] (resulting in perhaps the only time when a wizard goes into a serious [[Heroic BSOD]]).
* [[Butterfly of Doom]]: The wizards have a long discussion about the risks of altering the past after realizing that they have been stranded in the past. Ponder tries to use an [[Butterfly of Doom|ant]] as an example to warn them about [[Temporal Paradox|temporal paradoxes]], without much success as Ridcully himself is a believer in a [[Stable Time Loop]].
** [[Fridge Brilliance]]: From what we've seen in other ''Discworld'' novels, Ridcully may be ''right''. Dios' eventual fate in ''Pyramids'' and Susan's inspiring Death to spare her father in ''Soul Music'' suggest that Stable Time Loops may be how time travel actually works in Discworld. ''Night Watch'' is a sort of example, but that one involved the Meddling Monks.
* [[Canis Latinicus]]: ''Nullae Sheilae Sanginae" and "Nullus Anxietas", the BU mottoes.
** For those whose Latin is a bit rusty, those translate to "No Bloody [[Monty Python's Flying Circus|Sheilas]]" and "[[G
* [[Continuity Nod]]: The wizards notice the stars over Mono Island are unfamiliar and at first think they are on another world. Ponder figures out that it's actually the past (the stars on Discworld change as Great A'tuin swims through space) by noting that a much larger nebula in the sky is, in their time, known as the Small Boring Group of Faint Stars. This was mentioned way back in ''[[
* [[Death World]]: where spiders use their web as trampolines to jump on your face and have venom capable of making wood smolder. Also, see [[Everything Trying to Kill You]] below.
* [[Doorstopper]]: Dangerous Mammals, Reptiles, Amphibians, Birds, Fish, Jellyfish, Insects, Spiders, Crustaceans, Grasses, Trees, Mosses, and Lichens of Terror Incognita, Volume 29c, Part Three.
* [[Drop Bear]]: On Roundworld, a Drop Bear is a malicious koala variant made up by Australians to frighten tourists. On Discworld, a Drop Bear is a malicious koala variant that ''actually exists.''
* [[
{{quote|
* [[Everything Trying to Kill You]]: Non-deadly creatures of
** This applies to non-people as well. XXXX has numerous species of snakes...most of which have been eaten by the spiders.
* [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]]: According to the preface,
** And as usual, there's a CMOT Dibbler here too, selling meat pie floater.
* [[Flat Earth Atheist]]: The God of Evolution is an atheist. But also a god.
* [[Forbidden Fruit]]: Wizards are invariably attracted to it.
{{quote|
** Subverted in that they actually manage to resist this time. Their Housekeeper, on the other hand...
* [[Funny Animal]]: Crocodile Crocodile and some of his customers.
* [[Furry Confusion]]: In the bar in Dijabringabeeralong.
* [[Good Old Ways]]: Ponder's inner monologue claims the faculty have a collective [[Mad Libs Catchphrase]]: "You don't get proper fill-in-nouns these days--remember old "nickname" ancient-wizard-who-died-fifty-years-ago-who-Ponder-wouldn't-possibly-be-able-to-remember? Now ''there'' was a wizard who knew his fill-in-nouns."
** He starts [[Hypocritical Humour|quoting it himself]] when the randomised magic field of
** Also, Ridcully disparages Ponder's use of a thaumometer by saying "Licking your finger and holding it up was always good enough in my day". Initially this is a surreal gag because magic measurement systems on Discworld are a parody of temperature measurement systems on Roundworld, and this would work with temperature measurement but not magic. Then it's [[Double Subverted]] when Ridcully actually does this on
* [[I Was Quite a Looker]]: Some temporal wonkiness briefly regresses Mrs. Whitlow to a young woman, and the wizards discover that, though she now has a 'face made of chins', once upon a time she was a drop-dead gorgeous redhead.
* [[In Vino Veritas]]: Rincewind's personality almost inverts when he drinks enough of the local beer, and at one point has to remain sufficiently drunk to figure what he needs to do.
* [[Land Down Under]]: [[Blatant Lies|although author claims it is not]]
** Well, if you want to be technical with this being the Disc there is no "under". It is more the landoverrimward.
** Justified, or at least hand-waved, in-universe. See Leaning on the Fourth Wall.
* [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall]]: One of the characters explains that the being who created XXXX has a habit of adding continents of his own design to other creators' planets, and always puts in some kangaroos as a kind of trade-mark.
* [[Ms. Fanservice]]: Mrs. Whitlow (according to the Senior Wrangler, at least)
* [[Myopic Architecture]]: While the door, walls, and bars of Rincewind's prison cell are thick and sturdy, and the lock was also very tough, the hinges on the door were half-pin, meaning the door could simply be ''lifted off its hinges''. Small wonder the previous occupant kept escaping.
* [[OOC Is Serious Business]]: The word "monkey" is the Librarian's [[Berserk Button]]. When the Senior Wrangler accidentally says it near him and he does nothing, the wizards become convinced that the Librarian's not long for this world.
* [[Public Execution]]: Rincewind escapes a public execution. There's a lot made of the execution as entertainment, and as above, pieces of the rope are highly prized souvenirs, although [[Honest John's Dealership|Fair Go Dibbler]] is somehow able to sell them ''before'' the hanging. ("It's still rope, right? Genuine rope.") We're also told of the humanitarian tradition that if the gibbet sticks three times... the prisoner will be given breakfast while someone fixes it.
* [[Pun-Based Title]]: On ''The Lost Continent''.
* [[Readings Blew Up the Scale]]: Ponder's magic-measuring thaumometer melts when the magic field used to create XXXX exceeds its limit of one million thaums.
* [[Recursive Crossdressing]]: One of the transvestites Rincewind encounters actually is female, and laments "Being a female impersonator is no job for a woman."
* [[Shout-Out]]: Rincewind encounters [[Mad Max|a mad dwarf in a heavily armed and armored cart]] and [[Priscilla Queen of the Desert|a trio of traveling transvestites]], inspires a folk song similar to "Waltzing Matilda",<ref>Once a moderately jolly wizard camped by a dried-up waterhole under the shade of a tree he was completely unable to identify. And he swore as he hacked and hacked at a can of beer, saying, [[It Will Never Catch On|"What kind of idiots put beer in tins?"]]</ref>
** Two in the fight scene between [[Mad Max|Mad]] and a random Ecksian bar-goer. "You call that a knife? ''[[Crocodile Dundee|This]]'' [[Crocodile Dundee|is what I call's a knife.]]" "No worries. ''This'' is what I call [[Raiders of the Lost Ark|a crossbow]]."
** And another with <s>Skippy</s> Scrappy the Bush Kangaroo.
** The drunken Rincewind drawing a picture of the Faculty: "[[Rolf Harris|Can you tell what it is yet?]]"
*** He also apparently drunkenly sings "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" while at the bar in Didjabringabeeralong.
** The very name of the continent itself refers to a popular brand of beer in Australia.
** Tinhead Ned is an [[Expy]] of famed Australian outlaw Ned Kelly.
** "Can you hear that thunder? ... We'd better take cover..." are from the song Down Under by Men at Work.
* [[Stable Time Loop]]: A very complicated one, but a stable time loop all the same. Yes, turns out Mustrum Ridcully was right.
* [[Talking Animal]]: Rincewind's [[Trickster Mentor]], Scrappy the Bush Kangaroo.
* [[Timey-Wimey Ball]]:
{{quote|
'''Rincewind''': Oh come on, they look ''millions'' of years old!
'''Scrappy''': Yeah. Thirty thousand years ago, they were made a million years ago. }}
** This is a reference to the Aboriginal concept of Dreamtime, which works in a similar way.
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{{Discworld novels}}
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