"Interesting Times" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: The Agatean Empire requests a Great Wizzard [sic] to visit their continent, the Counterweight Continent (Discworld Asia), so Ankh-Morpork sends Rincewind. Turns out the Empire is in the middle of a revolution by the Red Army (not Soviet at all, honestly) and also there's an invading barbarian horde |of like seven old guys| led by the legendary Cohen the Barbarian.

Also, guess who shows up in this again? It's |Twoflower| (of The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic fame), who accidentally started the revolution by |writing a book about his vacation|.

This is just a friendly reminder that there are not 2,300,009 invisible bloodsucking ghosts invading the Empire. |There actually aren't, but the Agatean population believes that everyone outside their Berlin Great Wall is invisible bloodsucking ghosts, and Rincewind declares to one merchant that there are not 2,300,009 invisible bloodsucking ghosts, despite the nonexistent rumor that there are in fact 2,300,009 invisible bloodsucking ghosts.|

It turns out the original Discworld Red Army was made of |golems|. My first thought regarding that was "Making Money already did the |ancient buried golem army| thing," but that's kind of inaccurate because Making Money was published wayyyyyyy after Interesting Times.

And Hex cameos in this! Apparently some of his idiosyncrasies are due to the fact that he helped develop himself.

The end of this segues pretty much directly into The Last Continent.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor and swearing.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "[the five Agatean noble houses are] the Hongs, the Sungs, the Tangs, the McSweeneys and the Fangs."

    Page 3. Throughout the book, whenever anyone expresses disbelief about the McSweeneys, someone else will always say they're a "very old established family".

    *...Rincewind could scream† for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four.

    †This is important. Inexperienced travelers might think that "Aargh!" is universal, but in Betrobi it means "highly enjoyable" and in Howondaland it means, variously, "I would like to eat your foot," "Your wife is a big hippo," and "Hello, Thinks Mr. Purple Cat." One particular tribe has a fearsome reputation for cruelty merely because prisoners appear, to them, to be shouting "Quick! Extra boiling oil!"

    Page 56.

    "Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad."

    Page 108.

Appearances of Death count: 25.

(Endnote: Like basically all the Asian languages, Agatean is tonal. This means Rincewind, Cohen, and the Silver Horde routinely say things like "Good... clothes washer... half-eaten block of cheese... morning.")