Kudos to Rhianna Pratchett. From the Guardian:
Terry Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna has brought down the curtain on her father’s Discworld novels, declaring that she will not write any more herself, nor give anyone else permission to do so. The comic novels set in a world balanced on the backs of four elephants standing on a giant turtle are “sacred to dad”, she said.
The author, videogame and comics writer told a fan last week that her late father’s forthcoming novel, The Shepherd’s Crown, featuring teenage witch Tiffany Aching, would be the final Discworld book. And asked by a fan if she would be continuing the series herself, she ruled out the possibility.
“No. I’ll work on adaptations, spin-offs, maybe tie-ins, but the books are sacred to dad,” she wrote on Twitter. “That’s it. Discworld is his legacy. I shall make my own.”…
I bow to very few people in my love & respect for the late Sir Terry and his universe, but he gave us no fewer than forty Discworld books to enjoy. People have been trying and mostly failing to “supplement” the Sherlock Holmes canon for more than a century — the post-millenial attempts have frankly been successful because they’re not just pastiches. I’ve been able to happily re-read Jane Austen’s mere half-dozen novels a minimum of once a year for the last forty-plus years, so I think the extant Discworld catalog should be more than enough for our immediate literary needs.
raven
This may as well be in Farsi.
joel hanes
Also sufficient :
We have just the right number of Lord Peter Wimsey books.
Dorothy Dunnett’s work does not need someone to carry it further.
Aubrey/Maturin : more would be superfluous
Should have been stopped by a compassionate editor :
Dune sequels after two
Ender’s Game sequels after two
Ringworld sequels
karen marie
So glad to read this. A couple years ago I had read that Pratchett’s daughter would be continuing the Discworld series, and the very thought made me ill. I am delighted that plan has been abandoned.
jackmac
I loved Pratchett’s works and it’s right that it ends here.
(But I wouldn’t object to a couple more TV adaptations of his works).
Brachiator
I respect Pratchett’s decision. On the other hand, some novelists had assistants and ghost co-writers in their lifetimes helping to continue the works. There were some good continuations of the James Bond series. I heard that a recent new Jeeves novel was good.
Splitting Image
Speaking of impending travesties, I’m not looking forward to the upcoming Peanuts movie.
I came to Pratchett a little late, and I currently have Hogfather on my reading pile. It’s somewhat disconcerting to realize that you’re 19 books in and still not quite halfway done. Good on Rhianna for turning the page though.
Valdivia
There’s a cottage industry of Jane Austen ‘inspired’ novels which seems to be kind of silly. The one and only exception is PD James Death Comes to Pemberly which was spectacular, on of PD James’ best and in the right tone continuing the Austen atmospherics.
Pogonip
I haven’t read any of them. I rarely read science fiction, though I will read good horror, fantasy, or historical novels. Historicals that stay true to their period, of course, almost qualify as science fiction themselves. Offhand I can’t think of a more alien society than the ones in “The Persian Boy” or “Musashi.”. Those people are something completely different–and I love them for it.
Storm #5–they keep blowing through but the power stayed on. Oh well.
muddy
@raven: I had not read any of Pratchett’s work until just a few years ago, as it was shelved under Fantasy and I don’t go for stories with magic. Read a paragraph quoted in a blog and went to the store to get the book. Was instantly hooked and kept going back up for more until I had read them all up to that point. I turned my son on to them, his tastes are very different than mine, but he was instantly hooked. So much so that the last 4 books I have in hardback because he wouldn’t wait for the paperback, he read them and then gave them to me. I had built a special bookcase just for the Pratchetts and now some have to lie horizontally. (argh)
You might like them. They aren’t fantasy at all. British humor and social commentary really. So funny, but really address serious issues sometimes. The characters are so good. Tremendous wordplay and puns if you are into that sort of thing. Just don’t start with the 1st one he wrote, that’s not so good and there’s no need to go in order. I was bummed at first that I had missed them all those years, but then again I got to happily binge.
Brachiator
@Valdivia: I did not read the novel, but the TV adaptation was spectacularly bad. It was as though someone said, “yes, Austen wrote comic novels (in the widest sense), so let’s do grubbily realistic and dour.”
srv
Did you miss the part of the interview where JJ Abrams will direct the first Discworld movie adaptation?
mclaren
Vintage Obama:
While Obama signed the “Freedom” Act on June 2, he was secretly asking the top-secret FISA Court to ignore the Second Circuit Court of Appeals May 7 ruling that the NSA’s bulk data collection of telephone data was illegal — and will allow the NSA to collect the data during the 6-month transition period the new law permits (and after that, three guesses).
Welcome to post-legal America, where the law doesn’t matter if the president says so.
Classic Obama. Fake left, move right. Give speech extolling freedom, secretly urge court to ignore the law.
Brachiator
@Pogonip: I’m curious. How was “Musashi?” Have you seen any of the films based on that era?
Valdivia
@Brachiator: I didn’t see the adaptation but read the book and found the voice to be very good. PD James had her own sort of voice in the Dagliesh novels here it was totally other and reminiscent to my ear of what these character would have done in these situations.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
Finally back home and already in my jammies. G is picking up a pizza, if I can stay awake that long. I’m pretty much totally drained at this point. Luckily, I have a day to rest tomorrow before I go back to work on Monday.
opiejeanne
@Pogonip: Pratchett did not write Science Fiction, he wrote fantasy. Whimsical fantasy/social satire set in a world where magic is real and science is just a glimmer in the eye of the young wizards at Unseen University. Ankh-Morpork, the principal city/state on Discworld is a lot like Dickens’s London but with dwarves, trolls, wizards, a fair number of the various undead, the City Watch (especially the Night Watch), and a Patrician to keep everyone in line. The better books are very worthwhile reads, although YMMV as to which ones those are. I especially love the ones about the witches, and the Vimes books. Night Watch is in my opinion his very best book.
If you decide to have a look I would recommend starting with Guards! Guards! because it’s short, it introduces you to Vimes and the Night Watch, as well as Carrot and Angua, and it has dragons. Most of the dragons are draconis vulgaris, a small pathetic variety with a tendency to explode when excited. Lady Sibyl runs the Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons, but only the little swamp dragons. Draconis Nobilis has not been seen for many generations in Discworld.
Brachiator
@Valdivia: It’s funny. I like James, but really only know her work through the TV adaptations, and a short book she did on the writing and history of mystery novels.
SFAW
@opiejeanne:
Nit patrol: Angua doesn’t appear in Guards! Guards!
I found this page helpful for determining the order in which I read them. (Although I believe the first one I read was actually The Fifth Elephant. And I decided to read Small Gods out of order.) I’m currently reading Sourcery, so I have a bunch more to go before I finish the series, but they’re mostly hilarious.
Valdivia
@Brachiator: I totally get that,I have that with some authors too. I had read all her novels before even discovering the adaptations (which I enjoyed). When I heard this book about Pemberly was coming out I was very skeptical, the thing I liked the most is that you don’t get the feeling she is copying Austen but you feel the characters are acting as they would based on the universe Austen built. Don’t know if that makes sense.
Pogonip
@Brachiator: A whole bunch! “Musashi” is good and the 3 movies follow the book exactly, so if you enjoy one you’ll enjoy the other.
mclaren
Hilarious dystopian reading: postdoc hell:
“By the time Sophie Thuault-Restituito reached her twelfth year as a postdoctoral fellow, she had finally had enough.”
http://www.nature.com/news/the-future-of-the-postdoc-1.17253
“One Wednesday afternoon, my therapist said he’d stopped worrying that I wouldn’t get tenure and started worrying that I would.”
http://chronicle.com/article/failedintellectual/147353/
“The whole enterprise [of college education] changed. One term they used for it in the early days, according to a landmark 1988 magazine article by Barry Werth, was the “Chivas Regal argument”—the idea that college was a luxury good and should be treated as such. Forget all the bushwah about diversity and lazy professors driving up tuition; price increases in those days became virtually an end in themselves, something colleges did simply to burnish their prestigious brand image. Werth quoted an administrator from Lehigh University who put the new philosophy succinctly: `If it’s going to be a world of haves and have-nots, we sure intend to be among the haves.'”
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/08/colleges_are_full_of_it_behind_the_three_decade_scheme_to_raise_tuition_bankrupt_generations_and_hypnotize_the_media/
Pogonip
@opiejeanne: Thank you! Next time one of his books turns up on the cheap, I’ll add it to the pile.
Speaking of fantasy and sci-fi, you may rwmember the award ferkuffle in the field, which so far as I know is STILL dragging on, and that I was having fun with the idea of writing a novel that would offend everybody, right and left. And then a wowser of an opening sentence popped into my mind so I just might try telling a story for real, not with the goal of offending everybody but with the goal of entertaining everybody, or at least somebody, and having some fun.
Mary G
I have been plowing through “The Wheel of Time” on audio book from the library on OverDrive. I am on book eleven of fourteen. It’s a long slog. For some reason they don’t have much Pratchett. I did read a short story of his about an older witch (Granny Ogg?) that I liked a lot.
Pogonip
@opiejeanne: And if I win that [bleep]ing award I will decline with thanks and hand it on to whoever came in second. I would want nothing to do with it. That thing is like cancer of the blog–once someone starts writing about it, it rapidly becomes the main topic.
Not that I’d be likely to win, but there aren’t that many sites addressing a variety of topics, and this stupid award squabble has worked to the detriment of several of those that do. So I am expressing my disgruntlement here.
Bruuuuce
I just finished a complete reread of the series (41 books IIRC, with one last one due in August), and I applaud her decision. It would be virtually impossible to match Sir Terry’s voice and style and level of quality. If someone should turn up with those qualities, she could always reconsider, but for now. getting them converted to visual media is a huge enough undertaking.
J R in WV
@Pogonip:
Well, anytime a clique tries to manipulate the process of nominating books and stories for an award, and then works to manipulate the vote itself for the awards, that’s bad ju-ju.
I have read some books by some of the sad puppies, and looked at a work by the leader of the bad puppies (if I have these names right at all)… the books by the sad puppy were OK for military SF, but had little characterization. The piece by the ringleader, Vox, was terrible all the way through. Nothing good to say about it at all. I try to forget it, successfully so far.
I’m hoping they don’t ruin the whole Con lifestyle, it isn’t my kind of thing, but I don’t begrudge folks their happiness, so I hope they can go on with it. Costumes, and readings, and games and such. But Spokane is a long, long way away from me, and I have places to go and things to do before I can stop.
Bruuuuce
@J R in WV: “I have read some books by some of the sad puppies, and looked at a work by the leader of the bad puppies (if I have these names right at all)” Half right. There are the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies, of whom VD (or TB, if you use his given initials; either way, he’s a foul disease) is the leader.
opiejeanne
@jackmac: I agree that there are enough books, and that there should be at least a couple more adaptations.
mclaren
NPR program: “Why so many PhDs are on food stamps.”
Because America is a shithole. Why else?
Real countries don’t piss away their valuable talent like this.
opiejeanne
@Brachiator: Agree. While I like the actress for other parts, she was no Lizzie Bennett. Also, I kept thinking that one of the men cast in a lesser part would have made a better Darcy.
opiejeanne
@SFAW: Ah, Men at Arms. I forgot.
opiejeanne
@Pogonip: Are you referring to the kerfuffle involving Manly Men writing Manly Men-type shoot-first novels, vs. writers like John Scalzi?
Shakezula
I’ve tried reading post-written books twice – whoever tried to step into John Bellairs’ shoes and and Rex Goldborough (sic) who did or still does write Nero Wolfe. And … Yuck. It just doesn’t work. And the problem with people attempting to do Holmes’ reboots lies largely in the fact that no one will write in the original short story/novella format, which is what works for Holmes.
This is all a long winded way of saying, her house, her rules, but I’m actually very relieved.
@opiejeanne: The Dark Side of the Sun and Strata are both Sci Fi. I’d include “Only You Can Save Mankind” in there, but some people might say that is fantasy.
He also co-wrote the Long Earth series with Stephen Baxter. (Which I found unreadable, but still.)
opiejeanne
@Mary G: Granny Weatherwax or Nanny Ogg. The first is a tall, thin, virginal crone, very straight-laced (or is it strait-laced?); she is frustrated by her perfect complexion and an inability to grow a wart anywhere on her face. The latter is round and not bothered by morals, and is always ready to sing you a song about why the hedgehog can’t be buggered at all. Or the one about the wizard’s staff, which has a knob on the end.
opiejeanne
@Pogonip: Oh, THAT kerfuffle. What a mess.
opiejeanne
@Bruuuuce: So, VD (venereal disease) or TB (tuberculosis). What a choice.
opiejeanne
@Shakezula: The themes of those aren’t science-based, are they? They weren’t as good as the Discworld books so I never recommend them.
I don’t recommend the Baxter/Pratchett collaborations to anyone. I heard Baxter speak at a Discworld con before the first Long Earth book was published and he can be very entertaining, so I picked up one of his books and was appalled. His solo works are unreadable and the Long Earth seems to have very little of Pratchett in it. I don’t understand why Pterry was so enthusiastic about writing books with him.
RobertDSC (Quad Intel Mac)
The one series I’m trying to stay with but doing so more out of history than the new writer’s skill is the Tom Clancy universe. Mark Greaney is writing on about the adventures of Jack Ryan and his son Jack Junior, but the books Greaney has produced so far are a bit lacking in my mind.
Clancy’s work, when he still did it himself, fell off after The Bear & The Dragon. Until then, it was very good and I liked it very much. After The Bear & The Dragon, when Jack Ryan went full teabagger, I lost a lot of interest in the series. I still read them, but there was no rush to purchase new titles. Greaney’s taking over after Clancy’s death kept the series going, but the last two books have been sub-par.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Shakezula: No one writes in the novella format because it’s impossible to sell. There’s a vast wasteland between about 5,000 words and a full length novel that’s just death to get accepted anywhere. Hopefully this will change some with the advent of self-publishing your own digital editions picks up, but it’s incredibly hard for a new author to get noticed that way.
Pogonip
@opiejeanne: No, I was referring to the Puppy kerfuffle, about the awards. Never read any of Scalzi’s stuff except for an Amazon sample, which was not interesting enough for me to buy the whole book; I knew of Scalzi through his excellent article about ” Being Poor.”. Then I learned he lives a hop, skip, and jump from where I used to live so I read his blog occasionally.
Pogonip
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: You can only sell novellas if you submit them under the name “Stephen King.”. :)
mclaren
I believe the phrase “some of which will be for public consumption” is better known as “lying.”
http://www.politico.com/2016blast/
mclaren
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
No one except John Varley and Roger Zelazny, both of whom specialized in fiction of this length in their early careers. How they managed to get so much stuff into print remains a testament to the power of the long-vanished pulp science fiction magazines, almost all of which have now vanished into the mists of history along with 33 rpm LPs and 8 track tapes.
mclaren
@srv:
So Abrams is going to destroy the Discworld franchise as well as the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises?
Maybe they’ll let Abrams loose on the Bond franchise and we can kiss all the longest-running media properties goodbye.
Joey Maloney
Ace Atkins has done a pretty good job of capturing Spenser’s voice in his continuation of Robert B. Parker’s franchise. I’d go so far as to say his are better than the last few of Parker’s own, where he’d seemed to’ve written himself into a bit of a corner. In fact, IMO the series peaked rather early when he sent Spenser on a Hero’s Quest. I mean, where do you go from there?
Karen in GA
On one hand, I’m glad nobody else will attempt to write any Discworld novels. Even if they had been good, it just wouldn’t have been the same.
On the other hand, though, I have to admit I’m sad that this really is goodbye to Nanny Ogg, Sam Vimes, DEATH, et al.
PurpleGirl
@Pogonip: I haven’t read Scalzi’s novels but I do read his blog fairly regularly. His essay on Growing Up Poor is a must read.
Starfish
@raven: This is a diverse blog. We may be able to help you with that.
NotMax
Under TPP, copyright revenue will still be flowing in when her grandchildren retire.
opiejeanne
@Pogonip: yes, the Sad Puppy nonsense.
I like Scalzi’s stories and I see that he has published a new book. I’ll have to pick it up.
Is your story published? If so, what is the name because I will buy it just like I’ve bought things by most of the other writers here.
Tehanu
@Valdivia:
Have to disagree with you there; I thought “Death Comes to Pemberley” was dreary (although I did like Matthew Goode as Wickham). Always thought that T.H. White’s “Darkness at Pemberley” was really good though.
@muddy:
Not fantasy? Of course they’re fantasy, as well as satire. Just because you don’t “like” magic doesn’t change that.
@Mary G:
It’s Nanny Ogg. She’s Granny Weatherwax’s friend.
Robert Sneddon
Terry told us in the bar at one con a long time back that he had arranged “on sure and certain knowledge of my death” that all his works-in-progress, notes, ideas and other documents would be destroyed/deleted and that no-one else would be allowed to write Discworld after he had passed. Rhianna’s statement is just a confirmation of Terry’s decision back then.
Nanzee
@muddy: Great comment. Sometimes its better to acknowledge what’s already been said than to try to repeat.
I love reading and re-reading many of my favorite novels. Discworld, Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman, Jane Austen originals.
Valdivia
@Tehanu: I like Goode but since I haven’t seen the movie adaptation didn’t know he was Wickham. I will check out the other book.
Joel
@joel hanes: Dune sequels could have ended at one, as far as I’m concerned. Very poor follow up.
joel hanes
I haven’t counted words, but I think that GRR Martin has helped get several recent novellas into print in the anthologies he’s edited : Legends, Legends II, Warriors, Rogues and Danerous Women
It would be poorer world without A Rose For Ecclesiastes, The Doors Of His Mouth, The Lamps Of His Face, The Word For World Is Forest, and Riders Of The Purple Wage
Crouchback
@opiejeanne: The really sad part about the whole Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies brawl? Way back in 1950 Galaxy Science Fiction magazine ran their famous “Bat Durston” ad. It showed a science fiction and western story side by side that were basically identical except for a few adjectives and then promised readers they would never read that crap in Galaxy. Serious science fiction for your money! So even before the Hugos were awarded there was a push in favor of serious writing and standards. The Hugos were always supposed to be about the best, not the most popular.
Nanzee again
@Nanzee: Forgot William Gibson. Read his work over the most, always find new ideas.
canuckistani
Occasionally, Sir Terry would crack a joke that would just lie there, and you accepted it as part of the pun-laden charm of his authorial voice.
I couldn’t see anyone else trying to recreate that without a personal store of charisma that makes failed jokes fun in a meta- kind of way. I’m glad Discworld won’t be carried by unworthy hands.