People often talk about how they remember what they were doing when they heard the news of some or other historical event. I will probably always remember that I was washing the dishes when my phone beeped with the email from Penguin Random House carrying the news that Sir Terry Pratchett has passed away.
While Guards! Guards! was the first Discworld novel I ever read, my first Pratchett was Diggers, the second instalment of the Nomes Trilogy. Shortly after those two a friend told me about The Carpet People. And I was hooked on Terry Pratchett.
Over the past twenty or so years I have spent many hours in the pages of his books, reading and re-reading, until I forgot where I was and instead just disappeared into the wondrous world he’d created. His novels have made me cry, have swept me up in a rush of adventure, and have made me laugh so hard I couldn’t find my breath. I can say without hesitation that among all my favourites, he is my favourite author of all (is, for his work lives on). I owe my love for Science Fiction and Fantasy mostly to him, and I like to think the first sparks of my desire to write were also ignited by his stories.
I got goosebumps the first time I read Reaper Man and saw death walk up a hill to hone his scythe’s blade on the first ray of the rising sun and was alternately dumbstruck and in hysterics as I made my way through Thief of Time. As mentioned before, I consider Granny Weatherwax and Sam Vimes two of the greatest characters ever written, but really, he didn’t create a single character who wasn’t exceptional in their own way, just like people here on Roundworld. And I will never cease to be astounded at how he managed to teach us so much about our own world through a fantastical disc balanced on the backs of four elephants, riding on a giant turtle as it swims across the galaxy.
Everyone is talking of what a loss his passing is to the world of literature, and a loss it is. But let us also remember what a gift he was: all the books he leaves behind for us to enjoy and enjoy again, the countless lives he touched through his stories and his work in supporting research and raising awareness for Alzheimer’s. Yes, he will be missed. But I hope he was able to leave with knowledge of a job well done.
I think his own Twitter account describes his journey’s end best:
AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.
— Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob) March 12, 2015
Terry took Death’s arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night. — Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob) March 12, 2015
The End.
— Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob) March 12, 2015
It appears the Terry Pratchett website is down at present – probably due to a high volume of traffic – so I’ll update tomorrow with links to the titles mentioned in this post.
if all else fails...use a hammer 
Hey KokkieH,
Would it be okay if I reproduce this blog post on a memorial site I’ve been building over the last month or so?
https://clacksheader.wordpress.com/
Will obviously give attribution and link back to your original article.
Thanks
Dan
LikeLike
What do you mean by reproduce? You’re welcome to use a short excerpt with attribution as I also say on my copyright page – the Press This button in the sharing button section exists for exactly this purpose – but reposting the post in its entirety is not okay. Copyright issues aside, it will lead to search engines penalising both our sites for duplicate content. It’s not a good idea to repost articles in their entirety from any website, even if you have the author’s permission, for this reason.
If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion, for all the posts you want to use, use excerpts with links back to the original. That is permitted under the fair use doctrine of copyright law, and you don’t need to ask permission to do that. And that way the original authors of the posts will still get traffic to their sites when others click the links to view the full posts. It’s only fair that post authors get that traffic in return for the work they put into writing the posts.
Thanks for asking instead of just doing this 🙂
LikeLike
That’s why I ask!
Ta
Dan
LikeLiked by 1 person
A day to remember; Pratchett’s passing is such a loss to literature; he was a brilliantly sharp author, humourist and satirist. I never properly met him, but I almost spent one evening at a pub with him, when a writing group I was slightly involved with invited him for a chat and a drink. He really knew what made people tick. And as he said, during a talk I attended, he was the only person he’s aware of who’s ever invented a character that is instantly recognisable from the typography alone!
LikeLike
As I saw somewhere online: Death got to meet his maker.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautifully written. I’ve been feeling sad ever since I heard the news … and now you’ve just told me about a book I haven’t read yet – “The Carpet People”! So what if I’m 50 years late reading it? I’ve put in a request at our library… 🙂
LikeLike
The Carpet People is a magical book about an entire society that lives in, you guessed it, a carpet. I read it so long ago I can’t remember it in any detail, but I do remember I loved it and it was one of the books that got me hooked on Pratchett. It’s a children’s book, so don’t expect something on a par with the Discworld novels, but it’s brilliant in its own right.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hit me like a sack of bricks. I had been offline all day and it was one of the first things that popped up.
Devastated.
LikeLike
I’m kind of glad I found out via the news letter rather than a random post on Facebook or Twitter. I wouldn’t have believed it had I first seen it on social media.
LikeLike