R.I.P Terry Pratchett

This isn't the post I was planning to write.

Up until 5 minutes ago I had something else lined up but that was before I fired up my PC to see this:

Sir Terry Pratchett, renowned fantasy author, dies aged 66.

I don't think a public death has ever hit me so hard. It was like cold water down my back. 

I first discovered The Discworld books somewhere in about 1988ish when I spotted a little paperback with a brightly-coloured cover in my local WH Smiths.

 I took it home, read it at one sitting and spent most of an evening pissing myself laughing. 

 Comic Fantasy is difficult to do. Most authors either forget to add the jokes or overdo the silliness. Here was a book that got it right. The characters were idiots but they were idiots I could love. 

 I picked up each new book, snatching up the latest offering in hardback just so I could read them a little earlier.  I have them all on a shelf over my bed and each has been read many times.  

 Over the course of time the Discworld books evolved from a skewering of fantasy cliches to something deeper. It was still about Dwarves and Wizards and Witches but at the same time the Discworld was about people with all that involves. Sometimes silly, sometimes evil, most of the time flawed men and women trying to live their lives.  

  I can truthfully say, there has never been a fantasy series, let alone a comic fantasy series that made me care so much about the characters, or come so close to bringing tears to my eyes.

 Or made me laugh so consistently.  

 I wish I could write. More than anything else, I wished I could write like Terry Pratchett. 

  In later years, of course, there was the terrible spectre of Alzheimer's Disease but I admired enormously the way Mr Pratchett refused to go out without a fight. He said he was going to make this disease regret having met him. I think he may well have achieved that. 

So Mr Pratchett, thank you for Rincewind and Granny Weatherwax and Sam Vimes and Reg Shoe and Captain Carrot and The Librarian and so many others that kept me company over the years.

Picture from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news

 Thank you and goodbye.

Terry Pratchett 

28 April 1948- 12 March 2015

RIP