And, RIP Sir Terry. 
I'm three-quarters through his last book, Snuff. Brilliant writer, I'm gutted.
I'm three-quarters through his last book, Snuff. Brilliant writer, I'm gutted.
RIP Terry Pratchett
- Thread starter Algeroth
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Akka
Moody old mage.
Dafuq !
Pratchett ?
Man, this world will never be the same again
/salute to a great man who brightened life with deep thoughts delivered through witty humour .
Pratchett ?
Man, this world will never be the same again
/salute to a great man who brightened life with deep thoughts delivered through witty humour .
Perfection
The Great Head.
Never had the time to read his works but it's something on my bucket reading list. I did see Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die, a very powerful documentary. I'd encourage anyone to see it.
He was one of the good ones.
He was one of the good ones.
Verbose
Deity
Well, as a matter of fact, if you're at "Snuff" then there still remains "Raising Steam" for you. (Though I think anyone has to admit the disease showed in the writing at that stage.)And, RIP Sir Terry.
I'm three-quarters through his last book, Snuff. Brilliant writer, I'm gutted.
RIP
I knew he'd been battling Alzheimers for years, but still managed to write books somehow.
Small Gods is simply the best. (The eagle is my friend!
)
Followed by Vimes.
Followed by Rincewind.
Followed by DEATH.
I adored how "insurance" was outlawed in Ankhmorpork after the disaster it caused.
There's a good reason every bookstore sells a whole shelf worth of his books.
This will get you started.
The Colour of Magic
Link to video.
Link to video.
I think they made Hogfather too if you want to see DEATH be forced to play Santa Claus
I knew he'd been battling Alzheimers for years, but still managed to write books somehow.
Small Gods is simply the best. (The eagle is my friend!
)Followed by Vimes.
Followed by Rincewind.
Followed by DEATH.
I adored how "insurance" was outlawed in Ankhmorpork after the disaster it caused.
There's a good reason every bookstore sells a whole shelf worth of his books.
This will get you started.
The Colour of Magic
Link to video.
Link to video.
I think they made Hogfather too if you want to see DEATH be forced to play Santa Claus
Spoiler :
Evie
Pronounced like Eevee
Terry is not leaving us...Death is just being reunited with an old friend...
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
I strongly disagree, and so did Pratchett himself. He was a harsh critic of his first two books, claiming that they lacked any discernible plot.
They were also not well edited. I came across a lot of typos, and a couple paragraphs which simply stopped mid sentence.
When I recommended some Disworld novels to a good friend of mine last summer she didn't really think that highly of him, as she had only read those first two novels in the past.
I personally started with The Truth, then Monstrous Regiment, then Going Postal and Making Money. Those are all much better than the early Rincewind books.
My favorites are probably Jingo, Night Watch, Feet of Clay, and The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents.
The first three of those are Watch novels which probably require a fair amount of familiarity with his other novels to fully appreciate, but the last stands by itself. It is not such light reading as most of his works though, nor very representative of the series. Other than few couple footnotes which provide more than adequate background information, you wouldn't know it was set in Discworld at all.
The last published Discworld novel Raising Steam was unfortunately a big disappointment. It would be a terrible place to start. I don't see how a reader could make much sense of it without being very familiar with about two dozen other Discworld novels first, and it is severely lacking in the footnotes which help explain most of his works.
Wikipedia still claims that he has yet another Discworld book (The Shepherd's Crown, in the Tiffany Aching series) to be released this coming September. Do you think they'll still publish it posthumously?
I did not think that he was old enough (a decade younger than my dad) or that his condition was bad enough yet for him to die of natural causes. When I first read the headline I assumed it was a suicide, as he did campaign in favor of euthanasia, but the news reports otherwise. I remember that even in one of his books (I think it was Wintersmith) he had a character express his deeply held opinion that it is better to die while you still have your wits than to live on for years without memory of who you used to be. I guess he got his wish.
Borachio
Way past lunacy
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2012
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Well, we're all entitled to our opinions. I actually liked the Colour of Magic. If I remember it correctly (and I surely don't!) it sets out the stage of Disc World nicely and explains the way light moves more slowly over the landscape as the tiny sun rises over the horizon.
It also features the Luggage.
There's one or two books later on in the series which in my opinion are decidedly sub par, featuring some semi-erotic dragon fest. But I can't remember which they are.
I haven't read any of his books, but I've heard a lot about him over the years. It's sad when favorite authors die.
EnglishEdward
Deity
His Roundworld books had some excellent science.
Verbose
Deity
Early onset Alzheimer AND he had the rare "back-to-front" version. He must have been suffering from it for at least a decade, considering the early stages don't necessarily register all that much, it could have been maybe twenty years even?
It then got progressively worse rather fast towards the end. Sounds like how people typically go from it.
The big difference being that with him, what packed up first wasn't the higher cognitive functions, like it usually is, but all that other also essential stuff, like spatial awareness. He made programs about it for British TV even:
https://vimeo.com/24875580
He was "lucky" in the sense that he was stripped of things like his memory last in the sequence, but what was being removed was also essential features to sustain life. Usually Alzheimer patients get reduced to confused, veggie-status but still quite able to move about, feed themselves, etc. It's just towards the end they become unable to walk, feed themselves etc. But with Pratchett, the disease was going to move through those bits rather before it fried his memory totally.
So, Terry P was taken the roundabout way, where the bits that typically makes us who "we" are were relatively spared for later. But the writing apparently was on the wall already several months ago, when he started to have to cancel things last summer. Neil Gaiman penned a piece about his friend back then, which was clearly a kind of farewell, so he was apparently fully aware that it couldn't be too long.
Eventually enough of the brain shuts down for it all to go fairly rapidly in the end. He was diagnosed in 2007. He died eight years later. He ended up bang on the average expected lifetime after diagnosis even.
Considering the rare form of Alzheimer he had, and when it was diagnosed, no, his death now doesn't seem particularly fishy at all.
ArneHD
Just a little bit mad
If you have the time, go to your library and read "Small Gods". It's a really good read and a good starter novel as well. Shouldn't take that long to read either, a day or three depending on how addicted you get, because I can more or less guarantee that you will get addicted to his works after that.
Leifmk
Deity
I've been a fan since - it must have been 1988, so well over half my life - when a friend loaned me Wyrd Sisters. In my opinion the peak quality Pratchett period was approximately 1992-2002, marked by Small Gods and Night Watch respectively. Small Gods is perhaps the best entry point since it's a standalone.
Still:
All the little angels rise up...
Still:
All the little angels rise up...
In appropriate fashion, these were the last four tweets posted from his Twitter account.
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