It seems people either love the Rincewind books or loathe them, mostly loathe it seem. As Discworld books they're usually not the most sophisticated and they tend not to tackle more of the bigger satirical angles like the Guards series does etc and that's because they're quite old school adventure romps with Rincewind used as the gateway to various parts of the Discworld not seen before. I love them though and find Rincewind, arch coward and the Discs most reluctant traveler, to be rather endearing. This time around his unwilling adventure takes him all the way to the Counterweight Continent and the Agatean Empire. 

Along the way he meets up again with an old friend in Cohen the Barbarian as the ultimate coward meats the ultimate hero, perhaps playing fast and loose with the term hero but he's the opposite of Rincewind nevertheless and this brings a lot of humour and a lovely balance to the book. Something something counterweight hurr hurr. 

There is, however, a really poor caricatured view of Asian culture that seems like it was in there originally to poke fun at stereotypical racist Western views of the culture but pushes it so far and uses such low hanging gags as Two Little Wang or the Chow cuisine etc that it's really quite disappointing and no longer clear who the gags are aimed at. It's a real shame too because the rest of Interesting Times is a lot of fun especially seeing the ex-Teacher Saveloy attempting to civilise Cohens horde of venerable Barbarians.