Well, this is turning into a hell of a Thursday.
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
Open thread (on the condition that Mrs. Cake is still not to be asked about.)
monkeyfister
Even sadder news: Henry Kissinger is still alive.
PurpleGirl
RIP, Terry Pratchett. Your fans will miss you mightily.
Don’t know why but I never really connected with Pratchett’s writing but I know many people who idolized him. It’s a sad day for them.
monkeyfister: I agree completely.
Iowa Old Lady
Oh how sad.
Violet
Oh, god. This is a sad day in this household. RIP, sir.
J R in WV
I knew the day would come.
Here it is a sunny springtime day, which helps a little bit.
MattF
My favorite Discworld novel is “Thief of Time”. In which Death’s granddaughter Susan meets Time’s son, Jeremy. They make a nice couple. It’s a book that teems with amazing characters. You should go read it.
zzyzx
When you start out reading Discworld, it seems like it’ll be impossible to get to the end of the series. Now there never will be another new one (at least not by Sir Terry). The world is just a little more bleak today…
Joel Hanes
and in breaking news from Spain:
Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
Over to you, Dan.
colleeniem
Sir Terry will probably have a good time crossing the desert and find many loved ones and fans on the other side.
You will be missed by this fan muchly :'(. I hope you went as you wished.
scav
My rereading list needed reorganizing. Still.
That man had style that punched through to the end.
Joey Maloney
We’ve known this was coming. I hope he went the way he wanted to, by his own hand and in his own time.
RIP
hedgehog the occasional commenter
Goddamit.
cminus
“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?” – Going Postal
The Thin Black Duke
Terry Pratchett, in spite of the loud babbling of a few clueless morons who refused to take his work seriously because he was a “humorist” (somewhere, Mark Twain is nodding sardonically), was a damned good writer and I enjoyed his work immensely. And happily, I can always go back and read his novels again and again. Let’s see, maybe it’s time to grab Small Gods from the bookshelf…
Larv
Crap. What a loss. I can’t think of another series of books I’ve enjoyed as much as the Discworld books. It’s hard to believe I won’t have another to look forward to.
PaulW
Small Gods is arguably one of the best books about religion ever.
“One day, a tortoise will learn how to fly.”
PaulW
THE MAN MADE HIS OWN SWORD.
What have WE done with our lives?
Scott S.
Just reading stuff about Pratchett on Twitter and elsewhere is messing me up hard. Don’t know how I’m going to make it through the next few hours at work.
What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man?
Fcb
‘Reflected sound of underground spirits’: a pun that lodged itself in my lizard-like thirty-odd years ago, when Sir Terry was unknown, but had hidden ‘The Colour of Magic‘ in our local library. A pun recalled each and every time I read anything from Krugman or Cowen or any of that ilk.
YOUR CURRY AWAITS YOU, SIR.
PurpleGirl
From what I’ve read at other sites, Sir Terry died at home, his cat sleeping on the bed with him and surrounded by family. Not a bad way to leave, I think.
The Thin Black Duke
@Larv: I believe one of the things that made Pratchett’s Discworld series unique was how the characters evolved over time. For example, look at how Carrot changed from a “country bumpkin” type of character to a strong, charismatic and intelligent enigma who was able to outwit a dumbfounded Lord Vetinari.
esc
Having eight years to get used to the idea he wouldn’t have a long,long life wasn’t nearly enough time. Between him and Sam Simon, what a horrible week.
Lee Rudolph
Parts II and III of Auden’s In Memory of W. B. Yeats are more particular to their subject, but Part I is spot on for Pratchett, to me. (Well, except that spring is finally beginning to impress itself upon our landscape.)
I’m not sure it was only “a few thousand” for Yeats. I’m quite sure it’s many more for Pratchett. But, yes, he has become his admirers, and his words continue to be modified in the guts of the living. Ave atque vale.
Mike J
@PurpleGirl:
I’m the same. I have lots of friends who loved him, but every time I tried I just couldn’t get into Pratchett’s work. Maybe I should have read them when I was younger. I reread all of the Douglas Adams hitchhiker books a few years ago and didn’t find them nearly as hilarious as I did when I was 13.
Still, a sad day when someone with a voice who has touched so many is silenced.
Villago Delenda Est
I KNEW THIS DAY WAS COMING, BUT I’M STILL NOT TERRIBLY HAPPY ABOUT IT.
Villago Delenda Est
@monkeyfister: Not to mention the Dark Lord.
dmsilev
@The Thin Black Duke: Not just his characters, his whole world evolved. Too many fantasy authors create a world and then nothing changes except for The Big Quest and that’s it. Not Discworld. There were always new things, and those new things then went on to become part of the background tapestry for later stories.
Mayken
@The Thin Black Duke: “somewhere, Mark Twain is nodding sardonically” – Yup, something tells me the two of them will have a lot to talk about in the Summerlands.
RIP Sir Terry.
Ken
@PaulW: Agreed. Carpe Jugulum also ranks highly with me, between Granny’s speech about “Now if I believed in a god” and the wonderful “Everywhere I look I see something holy.”
PurpleGirl
To all his fans here, I repeat what I said in comment #20: He died in his bed, with his cat sleeping with him and surrounded by family.
Not in a hospital or hospice or nursing home. But in his home, with the people and pet who meant the most to him. Take comfort in that.
Yes, even with years he and we had to become accustomed to the idea of his end from Alzheimer’s, it still stinks and is still a bad day.
chopper
MOTHERFUCKER.
BethanyAnne
SQUEAK
theturtlemoves
@PaulW: My nym would seem to imply I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. May he either meet Brutha on the other side or spend eternity stepping across the Long Earth.
rikyrah
RIP
Be at peace.
Karen in GA
Iggy was almost named Gaspode.* My husband’s not a Discworld fan, so “Iggy” it was.
I did, however, name my white motorcycle Binky.
Very sad today.
*Ain’t nothing wrong with being a son of a bitch.
rea
@PaulW: I liked that he made a sword because the queen knighted him.
Noli Timere Messorem
mtiffany
IF YOU WOULD BE SO KIND, TELL ME A STORY AS WE WALK.
Drunken hausfrau
Oh, how sad…
Dave C
Fuck Alzheimers. Mr. Pratchett, you will be sorely missed.
I wonder – how would each member of the Night’s Watch (my favorite group of Discworld characters) mourn their creator’s passing?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Maybe the best use of twitter ever. I guess it was Pratchett’s friend Rob who wrote them? I don’t think he would’ve used the ‘sir’, just the sense I get.
@mtiffany: Bravo/a! I was gonna try a DEATH tribute but you won.
sparrow
@The Thin Black Duke: Small Gods is my favorite. Sad day.
The Thin Black Duke
@sparrow: Small Gods was the first Pratchett I read, and then Witches Abroad, and from that point on I was doomed.
Karen in GA
@Dave C: Vimes would shut himself in his office, consider drinking, then go home instead. Carrot would be devastated but he’d go right back to work, because “personal” isn’t the same as “important.” Angua would howl.
Annamal
Truth! Freedom! Justice! And a hardboiled egg.
(I love Small Gods…I walked across Spain with it but Night Watch also blows me away every time)
Sobbing at my keyboard here.
This is a great article from Neil Gaiman about his friend (written a little while ago)
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchett-angry-not-jolly-neil-gaiman
Another Holocene Human
Damn.
I loved Monstrous Regiment.
I was recommended Small Gods by a friend as the easiest intro to Discworld. It is very approachable. His later work IMO is much better, although every book involving DEATH is a joy. There was a movie made of Hogfather, if that helps. Very funny book. It took me months to grind through the first Discworld book which had a Conan satire that I was meh about. Pratchett moved on, obviously.
Dave C
@Karen in GA:
I like that. I suspect Colon would get drunk. Not sure about Nobby. His reaction could be…unpredictable.
Lee Rudolph
@Another Holocene Human: Hogfather is an amazing book. (Most of the non-earliest ones are.) Because this passage always makes me cry—purges me with pity and terror—and this is a time when I need to cry, I’m going to type it in, at length (and context be damned, though I think it stands on its own, anyway).
May that which needs doing be done.
BubbaDave
I could probably pick an epitaph for him from each of the Discworld books, and be content with it– but this is easily my favorite.
Applejinx
Dennis
WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN.
Randy P
@Annamal: Like others in this thread, I haven’t read a lot of Pratchett. But as a matter of fact, the last Pratchett I read was the collaboration “Good Omens” with Neil Gaiman.
I have nothing against Pratchett but somehow I’m more of a fanatic for Gaiman.
WereBear
Terry Pratchett won the Randolph Caldecott Medal for one of his works, and when he went up to accept the award, he fumbled the award… and then began eating it.
He had swapped a gold-foil wrapped chocolate coin for the actual medal.
Now that’s some kind of awesome.
Bruuuuce
I’m in the middle of a long-term, chronological order as written, reread of the Discworld, and just happen to be in the middle of Thief of Time, which largely revolves around dying the way one chooses, rather than just accepting fate.Just as Sir Terry so often said he wanted to do, himself. Appropriate, I think.
Two links: This first one is where I learned to love the man, not just the author (sadly, I never did meet him IRL): http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/when-terry-pratchett-was-knighted-he-forged-his-own-sword-out-of-meteorite-10104321.html
And second, this lovely piece by Paul Kidby: https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/check-mort.jpg
Rest well, sir. You’ve more than earned it.
daddyj
Goodbye, Terry, and thanks!
For those who’ve tried to get into Pratchett and failed, I recommend starting in the middle and maybe later picking up earlier books. I actually started with Thud!, a fairly late book, but Guards, Guards is a great way to get into the Vimes tales, Equal Rites introduces you to Granny Weatherwax. The first two books are barely better than National Lampoon parodies.
Comrade Javamanphil
Don’t comment here much anymore but fuck everything. Pratchett made life tolerable and cancer is killing my dad. Merry Saint Patrick’s Day, fellow hooligans.
Tehanu
Two other things about Hogfather:
1. Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary on Downton Abbey) played Susan in the movie.
2. Sir Terry wrote the best thing I’ve ever read about faith:
“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”
MY POINT EXACTLY.”
Comrade Scrutinizer
My favorite Granny Weatherwax speech, from Carpe Jugulum, about faith versus religion:
RIP, pTerry.
Debbie(aussie)
A very sad day of us Pratchett fans.
About to take an 19 hour train journey to vista my daughter in Townsville.’ Good Omens’ and ‘Small Gods’ shall help to pass the time and be a very small tribute to a talented man.
skwerlhugger
Terry Pratchett was the only author I could read in the second language I speak poorly, because he was the only one who made every paragraph worth struggling for.