The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett: Cohen, chaos, and Discworld at the edge of myth

Review

The Last Hero is a strange little beast in the best possible way. It sits somewhere between a Discworld novel, an art book, and a gleefully unhinged epilogue to the barbarian fantasy stories Pratchett had been cheerfully taking the mickey out of for years. Having read a long stretch of Discworld in order, this one still feels distinct. It is shorter, more ceremonial, and deliberately bigger than life, but it never loses the series’ instinct for turning absurdity into something surprisingly sharp.

The hook is magnificent. Cohen the Barbarian, now ancient, half held together by stubbornness and bad temper, decides that the gods owe humanity a refund. That gives Pratchett room to put the Silver Horde front and centre, send a gloriously mismatched rescue mission after them, and play with the idea of heroism from both ends. You get the swagger and ridiculousness of old-school adventure fiction, but you also get the Discworld version of it, which means the glamour is always being undercut by logistics, paperwork, creaking joints, and the fact that heroes are often one bad decision away from turning into public menace.

What really sells it is how well Pratchett balances the cast. Cohen is hilarious, but never just a joke. Rincewind gets to do what he does best, which is survive events that would kill more competent people, and Leonard of Quirm is exactly the right kind of dangerous innocent to throw into the mix. Vetinari’s dry authority helps ground the whole thing as well. Even with a relatively small page count, the book gives everyone enough room to feel like themselves rather than cardboard cut-outs being shuffled into place for one last caper.

It also helps that the grand scale is matched by the illustrations. This is one of those rare books where the artwork does not feel like a nice extra, it feels built into the experience. The whole thing has the air of a legend being told by someone who cannot resist stopping every few minutes to point out an especially daft detail. That suits Pratchett perfectly. He is dealing in myth here, but myth seen through squinted eyes and a very sarcastic grin.

If I have a reservation, it is that The Last Hero does not hit with the same emotional or thematic weight as the very top-tier Discworld entries. It is more of a lavish side quest than a devastating knockout punch. Books like Small Gods, Night Watch, or even Thief of Time have more to chew on once you put them down. This one is lighter, breezier, and more reliant on the reader already being fond of the world and the people in it. If you are not already on Discworld’s wavelength, I would not start here.

Still, as a four-star read it is easy to recommend. If you like Pratchett when he is in full comic legend mode, if you have a soft spot for the older, scruffier corners of Discworld, or if you just want to spend time with Cohen being magnificently unreasonable, this is enormous fun. It feels like Pratchett saluting sword-and-sorcery nonsense with one hand while nicking its wallet with the other.

Rating: 4/5

Audible UK’s catalogue metadata for this title is currently inconsistent, so this links to the Audible UK search results rather than a broken product page.