Sir Terry Pratchett has died | Hacker News Reader

Sir Terry Pratchett has died

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1,019 pointsrobin_reala223 comments

The first celebrity death that hit me hard. I've read all fourty Discworld novels, some of them 4 or 5 times. His books taught me to approach the world with a twinkle in my eye and a smile quick to come out -- a good change from the cynicism of my teens.

So many memories... he wrote amazing characters.

Dorfl, a Golem who figured out how to program himself (via writing his own scrolls to feed into his head). His fireproof nature made him a great firefighter and a constant nuisance on the street of small gods since he'd engage in rational debates and was not deterred by the prospect of hell -- the first fireproof athiest.

Death quipping to his grandaughter, Susan, when asked why people taught kids to believe in lies like the tooth fairy: SO THEY'LL BELIEVE IN THE BIGGER LIES AS ADULTS, LIKE JUSTICE AND EQUALITY.

I could go on forever, but I'll leave with one last quote from Death:

THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS JUST US

This hit me hard too. Discworld was like a lifeboat that kept me sane while growing up in the bible belt.

The magic of Discworld was always that you quoted characters and never Pratchett in person.

It was never the narrative that was quoted, nor the framing - but the words of the Character themselves (Vimes, Brutha, DEATH, Susan, Granny, Moist or Rincewind).

And that stands out whenever someone makes a comic - http://imgur.com/gallery/DXDvM

Note to self: campaign for zenpencils to make one - "Mr Pratchett, Him Diamond".

I don't feel sad for Mr Pratchett today, he was spared of his greatest worry - living in dementia. I do feel sad that we're all poorer in literature that delights and critiques modern society ("Echo-gnomics", heh).

I am really optimistic about the current rate of technological advancement, maybe in a couple decades Death will be conquered and Man will be immortal. That said, may he rest in peace, and may Discworld live on!

> THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS JUST US

I don't think that's a Pratchett original. It was a Ruthless Rap Assassins track before Reaper Man, and I suspect it wasn't original then either. If anybody knows where it originates I would like to know.

> THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS JUST US

That quote was used in the Discworld novel Mort in 1986, when death was talking to his apprentice. According to Wikipedia, Ruthless Rap Assassins' first album was in 1990 and Reaper Man came out in 1991. I'm sure you are right that other's likely have said it previously.

> His books taught me to approach the world with a twinkle in my eye and a smile quick to come out -- a good change from the cynicism of my teens.

I know what you mean. I think you'll enjoy Diana Wynne Jones then, who along with Brian Jacques and Terry Pratchett helped me through some depressing times, with their charming worlds and characters who were refreshingly devoid of malicious cruelty even when playing the villain.

"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life." — Terry Pratchett

RIP

"The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp." — Terry Pratchett

'He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armour shouting 'All the Gods are bastards.' - Terry Pratchett

If you're encased in copper, wet or not, you have a fair chance. The copper provides a conductive path around you that is better than through you.

Lightning rods and their cables also get wet, and are touching the building, which is also wet.

I wonder if Terry knew that and had taken into account. Even if he didn't, it resonates strongly with the audacity implied.

Only if the copper creates a contiguous channel around you. If you wore armour like say the old Greek breastplate-and-shinguards, there's a lot of space to travel with no copper conduit. Likewise the helmet may not be in contact with any of the other armour, so the next port of call for the electron stream is your scalp...

I don't know. The armor is a bit too close to the skin for comfort. There will be quite a bit of heat dissipated, to say nothing of purely mechanical shockwaves and deafening noise.

"He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at."

I love Small Gods :-(

"Noli Timere Messorem"

"It only kills monsters" - Susan, on why her poker passes right through Death.

I've never been able to remember where I read that. Thank you.

One more reason to regret him passing.

“Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” - Terry Pratchett

RIP, thank you for the perspective.

Very applicable actually. He lived a life that impacted millions of people around the world, and made his mark upon the world. RIP Terry Pratchett.

    'Oh, that's the Adjustable Device for Winning Ontological Arguments,' said Shawn. 
    'The King asked for it.'
    'Works, does it?'
    'Er . . . if you twiddle it properly.'

– PTerry

In case anyone hasn't seen it, Terry Pratchett helped make a documentary, "Choosing to Die", about (and eloquently defending) assisted suicide: https://vimeo.com/105168003

I've yet to see any reports saying this was such a death, but he's been dealing with Alzheimer's for some time now. At any rate, it sounds like he died in a dignified and comfortable manner, as he deserves.

If he died at home, it's unlikely to be as it is, unfortunately, still illegal in Britain. Switzerland is the key location where most British people go for assisted suicide.

His publisher has stated that despite his public support for assisted suicide he didn't take his own life.

In the BBC report it does say that this was not the case, however given that it is illegal in the UK it would be best not to make an issue over it for the sake of his family. the alternative of going to switzerland means not dying with your family around you for fear of them being prosecuted on their return to the UK.

   ‘Goodbye,’ Mort said, and was surprised to find a lump in 
   his throat.  ‘It’s such an unpleasant word, isn’t it?’

   QUITE SO.  Death grinned because, as has so often been 
   remarked, he didn’t have much option.  But possibly he 
   meant it, this time.

   I PREFER AU REVOIR, he said.

So, goodbye, Sir Terry; or at least let's hope it's just au revoir.

Well, I wasn't planing on crying this morning, but today I can make an exception. ;_;7

Au revoir, Sir Pratchett, you magnificent human.

One of the nice things about working from home is no one notices you crying at your desk. :-(

====

LORD, WE KNOW THERE IS NO GOOD ORDER EXCEPT THAT WHICH WE CREATE...

Azrael's expression did not change.

AND THERE IS NO HOPE BUT US. THERE IS NO MERCY BUT US. THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE IS JUST US.

The dark, sad face filled the sky.

ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION.

AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOME DAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.

Death took a step backwards.

It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features.

Death glanced sideways at the servants.

LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?

-- Sir Terry Pratchett, "Reaper Man"

Me too

I'm sorry, I think I accidentally downvoted your comment as the tap targets are so small. Now Its slightly grey and the triangles have gone, what do I do??

I've upvoted it on your (and my) behalf :)

Thanks!

Interesting, etymologically.

"Good bye" is a contraction of "God be with ye (you)", which isn't quite so abrupt. "Au revoir", literally, "until (we) see again".

Similar to "Hasta manyana" (until later), or "bis später" (same), Spanish and German, or "zài jiàn" ("see (you) again", Mandarin Chinese) . Farewells (literally, "fare thee well", be well) in many languages share similar attributes.

Never mind "bis später", what about "auf wiedersehen"... and "à bientôt" - see you soon.

Strangely, I don't really say "goodbye" all that often - it's either "later" or "'til next time.".

The Dutch 'tot ziens' is similar, and 'see you [soon]' is another common English expression.

I think "auf wiedersehen" is the same as au revoir, no? re-voir is to "re-see". I'm familiar with this contraction from Italian arrivederci - a (to/towards) ri- (again) veder (to see) ci (we) - "till we see eachother again".

Yeah, that was my point!

Right. I wasn't necessarily contrasting the primary parting phrases in various languages, but showing the similarities of many with equivalent varients in others.

Mort is Death in french. Mort says goodbye in english, while death prefers goodbye in french.

So perhaps the French translation of "good bye" which more closely matches the idiom's etymology is "adieu".

Spanish as well, I believe "via con dios": go with God.

My favorite is Japanese sayoonara: "if it must be that way"

Sayounara is more used for a very long, possibly indefinite goodbye, which accounts for the more wistful translation (similar to "farewell"). The more commonly used form is some form of mata, which means 'again', more in line with the parent's examples.

In contrast to "au revoir", the French expression for a final parting is "adieu". This is a shortening of of "a Dieu vous comant" ("I commend you to God"). In a sense, this is the opposite of "goodbye", at least in the implied direction of divine intercession.

In Welsh we say "hwyl" which literally translates to "fun". We never say "goodbye", we just wish fun on people until we see them again.

Words to live by:

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!"

That could be a Cave Johnson quote.

    "When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons
    back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed
    to do with these? Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it
    thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the
    man who’s gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I’m gonna get my
    engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!"

When life gives you lemons, leave them where they are and demand their equivalent in cash instead. As soon as you drive them out of the GM dealership, their value cuts in half.

This rathr sems to miss the point of Patchett's body of work as a selection.

I don't know, I'm pretty sure he was referring to himself as the third type of person when he wrote that:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchett...

I think the quote does miss the point, its almost a call for more wall street banker style behavior. As mentioned abovce though thats not really in keeping with his books, and the quote is misleading as it omits the last part.

It's the sort of thing Pratchett offers as a sour reflection on the world as it is, rather than the world as it ought to be.

The last part, as you note, is:

"And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carelessly knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass) or who had no glass at all, because he was at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman's eye."

...and both quotes are offered in The Truth, which offers more than a few critical comments around the glass-should-be-bigger set.

Related Far Side comic:

http://imgur.com/Gi2dtEz

That glass is not suitable for it's contents.

"The only things known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you can’t have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles - kingons, or possibly queons - that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expounded because, at that point, the bar closed."

--- Mort

That quote didn't seem like him at all, in fact it seemed to be showing a mindset completely at odds with his books, quick google indicates you maybe missed a key part:

Which is more like the average techie/engineer ;-(

If the site goes down again, here’s the text:

It is with immeasurable sadness that we announce that author Sir Terry Pratchett has died at the age of 66.

Larry Finlay, MD at Transworld Publishers:

"I was deeply saddened to learn that Sir Terry Pratchett has died. The world has lost one of its brightest, sharpest minds.

In over 70 books, Terry enriched the planet like few before him. As all who read him know, Discworld was his vehicle to satirize this world: he did so brilliantly, with great skill, enormous humour and constant invention.

Terry faced his Alzheimer's disease (an 'embuggerance', as he called it) publicly and bravely. Over the last few years, it was his writing that sustained him. His legacy will endure for decades to come.

My sympathies go out to Terry's wife Lyn, their daughter Rhianna, to his close friend Rob Wilkins, and to all closest to him."

Terry passed away in his home, with his cat sleeping on his bed surrounded by his family on 12th March 2015. Diagnosed with PCA1 in 2007, he battled the progressive disease with his trademark determination and creativity, and continued to write. He completed his last book, a new Discworld novel, in the summer of 2014, before succumbing to the final stages of the disease.

We ask that the family are left undisturbed at this distressing time.

All enquiries: Lynsey Dalladay, Publicist ldalladay@penguinrandomhouse.co.uk T: 0208 2316793 M: 07920 712543

A Just Giving page donating to the Research Institute to the Care of Older People (RICE) has been set up in his memory: https://www.justgiving.com/Terry-Pratchett

1. Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is a progressive degenerative condition involving the loss and dysfunction of brain cells, particularly at the back (posterior) of the brain. alzheimers.org.uk

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.” — Terry Pratchett

  "Yes. I know. He's Vorbis," said Brutha. "Vorbis changed people. Sometimes he
  changed them into dead people. But he always changed them. That was his triumph." 
   -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)

I love this book, Small Gods, one of my favorite books by any author. I think the same could be said of Terry Pratchett, he changed people through his books (and as a bonus generally left them alive). Godspeed Terry.

Small Gods was amazing. Thought-provoking moral hidden amongst good and subtle jokes. Hard to get into, but once you're in, you never leave.

And to think that most of his books are like this. A great writer, really.

Small Gods and Guards Guards are definitely among my most loved of his books.

Wasn't the audio codec "Ogg Vorbis" named after Pratchett's work?

Edit: yes it is, at least the Vorbis part. Ogg, despite similarities with Nanny Ogg, isn't: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis#Name

My favourite Pratchett line is the next bit. Death points out that Vorbis was a bastard, so why help him? Brutha returns "Yes, that was Vorbis. But I am me". A powerful comment to not let yourself be defined by the faults of others.

Small Gods was described to me, by a minister, as one of the best books about religion they'd ever read.

"Thou Shalt Not Submit Thy God To Market Forces!"

AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.

https://twitter.com/terryandrob/status/576036599047258112

just in the off case you didn't notice it (cause I didn't): read the follow up tweets, i.e. the whole profile.

https://twitter.com/terryandrob

https://storify.com/akkartik/best-eulogy-ever

Read http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchett... if you want to understand him.

Read http://www.lspace.org/books/pqf/ if you want a quick reminder of what we have lost.

Goodbye Terry, you will be remembered fondly.

I prefer not to think of human death as a loss. Rather, think of all we have gained from his life. He left us with many books to remember him by. I have lost nothing from his death. I have gained from his life. The stoics encourage us not to ask what we have lost when someone has died, but what we have gained.

I don't think we have lost anything.

I think we gained something incredible over a short time.

Nobody lives forever. What Terry Pratchett has given to us will live longer than any person. I'm not sad that he has died. Everyone who is born dies, and there's an infinite number of potential people who are never born. What is important is that we live, and while we live some of us do extraordinary things.

I'm reading Guards! Guards! to my 2-year old right now, a section each night. She gets me to turn to the inside cover to look at the picture of the "man". I tell her that that's Mr. Pratchett. She calls him "Mister Patchett" because she has trouble with that R. She likes to pretend she's a dragon. She will say "dragon needs her socks on". She talks about the "little tiny dragon Errol". Every night she comes and gets me before bed and asks me to read a story.

Tonight I'll read this to her again. I'm not going to tell her that he has died. She won't understand, and it's not important to her. She will still get excited to read the story. She will still look at the picture of the man. I'll still tell her it's Mr. Pratchett. She'll still be excited to pretend to be a dragon. She'll still want me to read another book when it's done, we're very near the end. She'll still learn a lot from him.

While there won't be any new books written by him, the ones in our collection won't go away. He will continue to help her get excited to read, to give her funny stories, to make her think about the world in a different way. For her, today will be no different than yesterday or the day before.

By the time she's finished reading through our collection and wants to know why there's no new books, if from nowhere else, she will have learned from him about death. She will have learned in a funny and non-threatening way. But she will heave learned nonetheless. We can talk about him at that point, but I'd rather not lament what we've lost, because claiming we've lost something is claiming ownership, like saying we deserved him, or that it was our right to have books written by him. We've lost nothing, because we didn't have him to start with. But we have gained a lot that he has decided to give the world.

So I don't want to lament his passing. I want to thank him for the things he has given us. I'm not sad there will be no more, I'm happy that he gave us these gifts to begin with.

Very well said, thank you.

My mum accidentally introduced me to Pratchett when she brought home Truckers, I was at the age where she would still read to me, but I would also push ahead on my own. If you're looking where to go next with your 2-year old, I'd recommend that trilogy.

This is beautiful. Thank you.

While beautiful, I need to know - how do you get a 2 year old to sit still to listen to "Guards! Guards!"? (or any book without ridiculous pictures, for that matter)

Try starting with books like "Press here" or "the book with no pictures"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Press-Here-Herve-Tullet/dp/081187954...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0141361786

Does she like music? Play her this song... It's about the Nac Mac Feegles. I think she might like it.

https://fengshuininjas.bandcamp.com/track/livin-every-dae-as...

> She likes to pretend she's a dragon. She will say "dragon needs her socks on".

You are raising this girl properly.

(I may be biased: I'm a forty-three year old woman with dragon wings tattooed across the backs of her arms.)

"No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away." ~ TP, Reaper Man

An absolute force. I've got a bookshelf devoted to Pratchett, and it's only going to grow. RIP.

I always liked the following sentences to that one too.

"No-one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away - until the clock they wound up winds down, until the wine they made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life is only the core of their actual existence."

I suppose we'll have to count my daughter as a ripple. Exposed at a young age, she grew up a Granny Weatherwax fan. I type this now from her cottage in some impoverished mountains where she is the local midwife. So Mr. Pratchett has another 50 years of women without healthcare getting access to a reasonable birthing experience to ripple out.

This hits hard. Pratchett has been a constant in my life ever since I picked up my first Discworld book at 13. I'll be reading "Guards, Guards!" tonight in memory of him while eating a hot meat pie of questionable origin.

I shall be having sausages. Inna bun.

“DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING," said Death. "JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.”

Why the quotes?

I see you're downvoted, but you're right. The lack of quotes around Death's words was characteristic. Death didn't "speak", his words just existed, imperial, in the narrative :)

That and the, well, rather more down-to-earth reasoning that his words were set in small caps and so were easily distinguishable from the rest of the text.

I still wish I could speak in small caps.

ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ᴏғ ɪᴛ ᴀs ᴅʏɪɴɢ said Death. ᴊᴜsᴛ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ᴏғ ɪᴛ ᴀs ʟᴇᴀᴠɪɴɢ ᴇᴀʀʟʏ ᴛᴏ ᴀᴠᴏɪᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴜsʜ.

I see your Unicode there... and I like it! Nothing more to say, really. Awesome :)

(EDIT#3: I overspoke. Nevermind, beautiful!)

I had and continue to have a lot of laughs with Pratchett. One of my favourite ones which I only a couple of years ago re-listened on Audiobook while walking about town and was giggling outloud uncontrollably was this quote:

> ...if you haven’t smelled Ankh-Morpork on a hot day you haven’t smelled anything.

> The citizens are proud of it. They carry chairs outside to enjoy it on a really good day. They puff out their cheeks and slap their chests and comment cheerfully on its little distinctive nuances. They have even put up a statue to it, to commemorate the time when the troops of a rival state tried to invade by stealth one dark night and managed to get to the top of the walls before, to their horror, their nose plugs gave out.

The idea of carrying chairs outside to appreciate it is so hilarious. It speaks a wealth to me about working class pride in whatever circumstance and condition your town and life is in. That “This may be so, but it's mine” attitude.

Terry's plots were fun but his best most memorable things were his insights into every day life; his grandoise fantasy elements were always the backdrop to the characterization and human elements, always witty.

> Rincewind had in any case seen his past life flash in front of his eyes so many times that he could sleep through the boring bits…

I've never read any of his books, although I've been meaning to for some time.

Can anyone who's read through them comment? According to the Discworld wikipedia article, publication order may not be the best way to go through the series. This[1] page recommends reading a plot/chronological order. Personally I prefer reading books in publication order, since I get to follow the mind of the author. Given that, there are a lot of books here so I'm open to suggestions.

[1] http://www.co.uk.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/index...

Edit: Thanks for the responses, I had already reserved The Colour of Magic (you have no idea how nice it is to type that as a Canadian ex-pat) at my local library, I'm going to hunt down Guards! Guards! now. :)

Edit 2: And... there's a waitlist. Thanks, everybody!

Small Gods is what I'd start with.

Good omens co written with gaiman , i've never laughed so hard before reading this book :)

I’d go with publication order; while the person who introduced me to the series insisted, nearly to the point of violence, on starting with Guards, Guards!, I don’t see where it helped, as the earlier books are quite good if somewhat different from his later style.

The Color of Magic arc may be a bit boring at first. It took me some time to actually finish it. It worth the reading, but it might repel people who are not yet into Pratchett's writing style.

Some of the earlier books, particularly The Color of Magic, are parodies of other fantasy literature. If you aren't familiar with the books and genres it's poking fun at, a lot of the jokes will fall kind of flat.

Small Gods is a nice standalone (despite being in the Discworld storyline, it is not really connected to the previous stories) about religion. Mort is another, talking about Death.

+1 for Mort. It is fantastic. And it is about death, so it's highly, should I dare say, appropriate for the occasion.

The Wee Free Men and Dodger are also nice to read. They focus a bit less on humour, being geared a little more towards children. Don't expect to laugh all the time. But the settings of these stories are magical.

Moshe makes a good suggestion. Small Gods is a favorite of mine and it stands alone well enough.

I looked and generally agree with that suggested reading order and I started with the Watch series. I'd pick one of those series, give the first book a shot, but if you hate it maybe give one of the other continuities a shot before you throw in the towel. I hated the Rincewind novels and it took me a while to come around to the Witches (now I love them) but I thought the Watch books (starting with Guards! Guards!) to be absolutely fantastic.

He's written a lot of books of varying quality over a lot of time so I always warn people to be prepared to give him a second chance.

I met him once when I was a teenager. He was really kind as well as insightful and funny.

The Discworld novels overlap somewhat, given that they are set in the same universe, but are generally grouped into individual sequences that each should be read chronologically.

For example, the books about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch start with "Guards! Guards!", and the subsequent books in this sequence tell the continuing story of how the Watch evolves into a (slightly) modern police force. If you start in the middle of this sequence, the payoff won't be as good.

Similarly, there's the sequence about the witches ("Equal Rites" etc.), about Rincewind ("The Colour of Magic" etc.), and his last books about the "Ankh-Morpork industrial revolution" (starting with "Going Postal"). Then there are some one-offs, like "Eric", "Small Gods" and "Pyramids".

I tend to recommend "Guards! Guards!" as a starting point, because I find the City Watch stories the most interesting and enjoyable. Together with the later Ankh-Morpork books they read like an insightful origin story of a modern society, and encompass many sociological topics. Several of the Watch books are also highly original detective mysteries.

The main reason for that recommendation is that The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, though fun books and enjoyable fantasy parodies in themselves, are really not representative of what the later Discworld books were to become. When Terry wrote Equal Rites and Mort, he really set out his manifesto for the series as being about this world, reflected in that world, and that theme is what really carries forward.

So with the caveat that you need to understand those first two books aren't representative of what the series becomes, you could definitely start at the beginning. Just know that across so many books, there's bound to be some unevenness. Some books are just plain fun, others have deeper messages, some are, frankly, just not as good. Early highlights like Guards Guards, Pyramids, Small Gods, Wyrd Sisters are the ones where you'll discover the real breadth of what he does. Later books can be less consistently original, but when you get to books like The Truth, Night Watch and Monstrous Regiment, there are some real gems.

But don't let yourself not read any of them. That would be a real shame.

Night Watch was amazing. Moral, moving, exciting. It could stand on it's own as literature without any of the other books.

Night Watch is amazing and moving.

Other Discworld stories that surprised me include Lords and Ladies and Thud!, in which Pratchett manages to write genuine horror stories.

Apart from his pun-a-thon books, most of his Discworld novels have some sort of moral underpinning. Small Gods on being religious versus being good is an obvious one, Feet of Clay being about slavery and what defines a person is another. But if you take a step back and look at most of his books, you'll find a moral lesson intentionally put in there.

I think Night Watch is my favourite too. A little bit dark, and lots of deep questions about morality.

Small Gods is a common recommendation from other people, but it is a collaboration with Gaiman. Not that its a bad thing, but it is missing the full Pratchett voice.

My favorites are all Moist_von_Lipwig books. I recommend starting with Going Postal. Its comes much later in chronological order, but is the first Moist_von_Lipwig book and is enjoyable standalone.

I don't think Small Gods is a collaboration, that's Good Omens.

Yes.

Extending this comment, Good Omens is an excellent book, but not anything like the Discworld series.

Small Gods is a good discworld book to start on (the best in my opinion, of course everyone will have their own).

Although Going Postal is the first Moist book, The Truth is the first "Industry" book and I think it's best of the lot. Going Postal is still great though (much better than the later industry ones).

Sorry, I was wrong. Good Omens is the collaboration.

I had my copy of Good Omens autographed by Gaiman, whence I remarked that I needed the other half now (this was 2011). Gaiman responded, "You'd better hurry up about it."

Sorry, Sir Terry :(

> but it is a collaboration with Gaiman

Unless I'm missing something important, you're thinking of Good Omens, rather than Small Gods.

Seconding Going Postal. It should be noted it's an especially good fit for the Hacker News demographic, parodying hacker culture and even referencing GNU.

Guards! Guards! is a great starting point, both on it's own merits and as it introduces the Watch series which is terrific. It was also the author's favourite (or one of his favourites).

Be aware that if you start at the beginning with The Colour of Magic the very early books are a quite different style to once he'd got into his stride, so unless you're absolutely determined to read them all I wouldn't start there.

Edit: Btw, Guards! Guards! is early enough in the series that it's still recognisably 'early' Pratchett, so if you're interested in seeing his style develop it's a great place to start for that reason too.

I started with Pyramids half my life ago, back in my early teens. It's the only novel not to have started its own mini series, which I have always felt is a bit of a shame. But it did hook me and made me want to read all of the others. I think by the time of Pyramids TP was really getting in to his stride, so when I went back to The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic and found them less polished I wasn't put off as I knew there was better to come.

Yeah, I've read the first half of Pyramids half a dozen times ;)

I only just finished reading The Long Mars a couple of weeks ago - I wonder whether Stephen Baxter will continue solo with the final book (as number 4 is due out later this year[1]).

[1]: http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/editions/the-long-utopia-the-lo...

I'm a little bit older, so I started at the start with Colour of Magic, and then went back for Truckers etc.

As for Pyramids, for me as someone who's first programming language was an 8-bit BASIC variant, and was amidst calculus and trig etc. in his later high school career the camel's thought processes were totally mindblowing.

For all I know, Terry Pratchett accidentally rigged reality through writing this book in order to turn me into a software developer...

"The silence that followed was by way of being a standing ovation.

The landscape began to distort again. This was clearly not a place to linger. You Bastard looked down at his front legs.

Let legs equal four.

He lumbered into a run. Camels apparently have more knees than any other creature and You Bastard ran like a steam engine, with lots of extraneous movement at right angles to the direction of motion accompanied by a thunderous barrage of digestive noises.

'Bloody stupid animal,' muttered Ptraci, as they jolted away from the palace, 'but it looks like it finally got the idea.' "

The early ones are weaker; he gets better, and then maybe tails off towards the end. Most people prefer Vimes to Rincewind. If you want to read them in publication order it's a perfectly good order, but if you're unsure I'd start with one of the more well-regarded ones - maybe just follow the "watch" track on that chart, or others have made suggestions.

Question 1: Are you fairly determined to read them all?

YES: start with The Colour of Magic at the beginning and work your way through

NO / Not sure: Don't start at the beginning, as the first few books are weird and will put you off.

Question 2: What sounds more fun to you, reading about Badass Witches, Badass Policemen or Badass Businessmen?

Your respective starting points are Equal Rites, Guards! Guards! and The Truth.

Mort is my go-to suggestion for a starter book. The Death books in general are pretty damn good.

I agree. The Death books are by far my favourite ones of the Discworld series.

Was The Watch for me but now it just might be The Witches.

I liked the character of Granny Weatherwax but the Tiffany Aching series really brought out her essential nature in a way the other books didn't.

Damnit now I feel sad again.

You could skip the first two books and start with Equal Rites.

Read the very short story 'Troll Bridge' - http://www.angelfire.com/weird2/athenia/stories/pterry/troll...

Then buy the lot, you will not regret it. Some are better than others, naturally, but even his worst is like Tom Holt on top form.

I'd read them in order, personally. Though that might just be because that's been my experience of them.

As others have said, the style changes after The Light Fantastic, but the first two books do a lot of scene setting and character building that feed into the later works.

edit - Troll Bridge was published in the anthology 'After the King: Stories In Honor of J.R.R. Tolkien' - http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/After_the_King - buy that too. Is all good.

Troll Bridge is being produced as a short film...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/snowgumfilms/terry-prat...

That Troll Bridge page is a bit difficult to read. Try:

http://markdownshare.com/view/0d9bab9a-065a-4838-adf5-17d507...

Begin at the beginning. Pratchett's concept of the discworld filled out as the books go on. Read the books in chronological order and you'll see the discworld grow. Things happen in later books that wouldn't make sense in earlier books, and in the later books, the world is much more 'nailed-down'. The first couple of books, as mentioned, are much more lighthearted whimsy, without a formal plot. But they're still a fun read, you get some discworld basics in them, and they're pretty short.

"The Light Fantastic" was my first introduction to Terry Pratchett back around 1989 or so. I was definitely hooked. To me, the first two books are lot more like Douglas Adams' books: vehicles for cool ideas and good humor, but not particularly interesting or insightful stories. The Discworld books would have played out pretty quickly if they'd stayed that way.

But then he got better. Much better. Much, much better.

If you have some time on your hands, I suggest the Watch and the Witches series in chronological order. They are fine examples of the amount of character development Pratchett made happen and also of himself growing more and more mature and witty as a writer.

It's interesting how the last few major deaths I remember on here have been of people that discussed death publicly. Hal Finney, some time ago, discussed cryopreservation after his diagnosis of ALS, and Terry Pratchett discussed his views on assisted suicide publicly.

He had also previously said [0] that he wanted to hear "Spem in Alium" [1] play as he died. I wonder if he was able to do this.

I'm also curious what people would think of a black bar.

[0] http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/willheaven/100025158/sir-t...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cn7ZW8ts3Y

Hs anyone checked for a "I ATEN'T DED" sign?

Terry Pratchett's standard author blurb begins: "Terry Pratchett was born in 1948 and is still not dead"

One of my bands, the Feng Shui Ninjas, wrote a song about the Nac Mac Feegles, who appear in several of Terry Pratchett's books. In his memory, we're making it available for free on Bandcamp. Any payments for the song or the album will be donated for Alzheimer's research. This hit us really hard.

https://fengshuininjas.bandcamp.com/track/livin-every-dae-as...

The drummer and I also have a side band named Carpe Jugulum, after another Terry Pratchett story. And another bandmate was on the concom for the Discworld convention. Like I said, it hit us pretty hard.

I hope he's drinking, fighting, and stealing his way through the amazing afterlife with the Feegles. He deserves it.

I hope "embuggerance" is accepted as an new word this year, in honour of one of the greatest English writers.

That word should win all "word of the year" awards this year.

Embuggerance is already in the Macquarie Dictionary.

One of my favorite Pratchett books is Nation. It's actually not a Discworld book, but very much in the same vein. My wife and I listened to the audiobook (and then later both read it) and loved it. The Milk that Happens, when Daphne figures it all out, is the only scene in a book that has ever made me simultaneously laugh and cry (not from laughter) at the same time. Every time I read it. Hilarious and heartwarming.

We all knew this day would come, but it doesn't make it any easier.

Pterry created some of my favourite characters in the literary world. Nany Ogg, the witch who's keen on drink and singing (The wizards staff has a knob on the end), The Igors and Igorinas, Conina the barbarian hairdresser, DEATH, Nobby Nobbs, the luggage, ... .

RIP Sir Terry, you have enriched my life greatly.

Wasn't the "Wizards' Staff" more of Ankh-Morpork song? Nanny was known more for her Hedgehog song.

Although I wouldn't put it past her to hear Wizards' Staff at some point of her long life, and of course she would like it too. :)

I am pretty sure the song is first mentioned in 'Wyrd Sisters' when Nanny Ogg is shouting at the night sky.

I am not sure it's first mentioned there, but Nanny definitely sings it in wyrd sisters[0].

[0] https://books.google.it/books?id=t4Djt1RPNiYC&printsec=front...

poem_for_your_sprog on Reddit produced this sublime poem:

http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ysvzb/terry_pratchet...

The sun goes down upon the Ankh,

And slowly, softly fades -

Across the Drum; the Royal Bank;

The River-Gate; the Shades.

A stony circle's closed to elves;

And here, where lines are blurred,

Between the stacks of books on shelves,

A quiet 'Ook' is heard.

A copper steps the city-street

On paths he's often passed;

The final march; the final beat;

The time to rest at last.

He gives his badge a final shine,

And sadly shakes his head -

While Granny lies beneath a sign

That says: 'I aten't dead.'

The Luggage shifts in sleep and dreams;

It's now. The time's at hand.

For where it's always night, it seems,

A timer clears of sand.

And so it is that Death arrives,

When all the time has gone...

But dreams endure, and hope survives,

And Discworld carries on.

"Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you." — Terry Pratchett

"It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases - one was Alzheimer's, and the other was knowing I had Alzheimer's." - R.I.P Sir Terry Pratchett

If you enjoyed Discworld, checkout out Discworld MUD. Probably the most indepth and enjoyable game I have every played:

  telnet discworld.atuin.net 23

I was introduced to Terry Prachett by watching Terry Pratchett's Hogfather as done by Sky One. Really late to get into his stories, but since then I had started with book 1 of Discworld.

Are there authors who write similarly?

> Are there authors who write similarly?

Nope.

But the closest you're going to get is probably Douglas Adams.

Maybe Robert Asprin? Same generation and I think his first MYTH books were at the similar level of ridiculousness and brilliance.

given the single masterpiece which is "Evolution man"[0], Roy Lewis is the third author I usually associate with DA and TP.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Man-How-Ate-Father/dp/067975...

Robert Rankin perhaps? Try the Brentford Triangle. I've been the Griffin Park (not that i'm boasting or anything).

I couldn't get into the Brentford Triangle personally, but I really enjoyed Armageddon the Musical.

I'd recommend Neil Gaiman; and definitely read Good Omens, a book that Terry and Neil co-wrote.

Neil Gaiman; Douglas Adams; Jasper Fforde.

FForde is a good recommendation. The Thursday Next books are absolutely wonderful.

(And my daughter has been reading Chris Riddell's Goth Girl books, which are like Fforde for younger readers.)

Neil Gaiman. My favorite Pratchett book is actually "Good Omens", his collaboration with Neil Gaiman back before either of them were famous.

Man, first Nimoy and now this... I hate being the age when all your childhood heroes starts dying off one by one :(

Still better than being at the age where everybody around you start dying.

and that is still better than being dead :)

Nah, actually being dead isn't that terrible. You hurt the people around you more than yourself when you go. Unless of course you die painfully/violently.

Well, I'm glad he's no longer suffering. He had Alzheimer's, and he's been advocating for assisted suicide for years now.

As much as it hurts to lose him, this is what he wanted.

+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++ (Hogfather)

I have to ask, did anyone start on Pratchett with the Nome trilogy? I think I was 8 or 9 when my mum brought truckers home from the library to read together with me. After I went through that trilogy on my own she bought me a copy of Pyramids and it's been uphill since then.

Unfortunately Pyramids was a bit too weird for her, and put her off Pratchett, I can see why that would be.

I did, first book I managed to read in English actually. I was 10ish?

I couldn't say which one I started with, it was too long ago, but the bromeliad trilogy is certainly one of the first of his I read.

Wow, it was only a few years ago I recall him joining our university as creative writing lecturer. He was very well received here in Dublin by both staff and students.

I thought he'd have another five or ten years lecturing before kicking the bucket. 66 seems a little young.

From Sep 2014, Neil Gaiman writing about Terry Pratchett:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchett...

... =(

I saw his movie on assisted suicide. I hope he left us with no regrets. RIP

Incredibly sad news.

Plenty of people on this thread have recommended some of his best books(Small Gods, The Truth, Monstrous Regiment) but nobody has brought up Jingo yet. It's a wonderful satire of extreme war nationalism, it's part of "The Watch" series of Discworld books so it helps if you've read the previous books ( Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay ) but reading it by itself is fine.

That's so much faster than I thought... HOPED for. I'm a big fan of his writing style. Clever and funny. He'll be missed. RIP, Sir.

Can't say I am familiar with any of his work but I have been reading about his battle with Alzheimer's and his stance on assisted suicide. This makes me think of own mortality and I hope I dont have to deal with having such a disease where my body or mind slowly deteriorates(well ageing does this so I will have to deal with it anyway).

I nearly wish for a swift death that I don't see coming.

It's quite a sad day. I loved his books, and he will always be one of the greatest authors to me. Glad he's no longer suffering.

We read and studied "Guards! Guards!" at school, and we were fortunate enough that he visited and spoke to a group of us, answering questions. I seem to recall that I asked a fairly dumb question... This was about 25 years ago, but I'm honoured to have met him and will always remember his enthusiasm and charisma.

Dear sir,

After all the hours spent in the company of your charming characters, puns, and wit, I have only two parting words:

Thank you.

In honor of Sir Pratchett, let us redefine pi to be 3.12

12.3, he’s British.

A real British pi would never have a decimal point in it - they are newfangled foreign things.

Right - we all know that pi is actually three pounds, two shillings and tenpence.

Sad to hear. Guards, Guards! was my first, but Thief of Time is my favorite.

Wen The Eternally Surprised: "… I know the answers to many questions. Ask me."

The apprentice gave him a bleary look. It was too early in the morning for it to be early in the morning. That was the only thing he currently knew for sure.

"Err… what does the master want for breakfast?"

…

"Ah," he said. "One of the difficult ones."

Not many good quotes on LSpace, but Goodreads has many: http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/46982-thief-of-time.

Perhaps of interest to the hacker community is that Terry experimented with computer-generated text in some of his work.

I don't know to what extent these experiments were involved in his books, the one concrete example we have is "Millennium hand and shrimp," apparently a combination of a They Might Be Giants song and part of a Chinese take out menu [1]

[1]http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/lords-and-ladies.html#p32423...

Thanks Sir Terry! Your books are a comfort to me and you can just add me to the list of fans world-wide whose lives are just that bit richer for your being here. Nicely done.

bbc link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31858156

I'm saddened greatly by this - for many reasons, not the least of which is that we will likely not see any more Long Earth novels in concert with Stephen Baxter.

The 25th of May is Towel Day, to commemorate Douglas Adams.

If we keep the 8th of April as Terry Pratchett day, perhaps we could all wear wide-brimmed fedoras?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towel_Day

http://www.sfwa.org/2014/04/international-sir-terry-pratchet...

25th of May is also the Glorious Twenty-fifth on the Discworld, where those involved in the People's Revolution wear lilacs to memorialise those they've lost.

Seems obvious what should happen at this point.

I met him once.

He came to talk at UNiversity of Cape Town here in South Africa.

I was never really a fan (not for any reason apart from my infatuation with Gibson which kept me more in Chiba City than in Discworld) but I went with a friend who got his copy of Mort signed.

Sir Pratchett gave a great talk and made a funny (yet by todays standards perfectly hideous) comment about fat goth girls.

Just a memory that a total random holds of the man. For what it's worth.

Url changed from http://www.pjsmprints.com/, which stopped working.

Where is my Discworld augmented reality overlay (from Rainbow's End, Vernor Vinge)? Google glass was supposed to bring us this...

STP's books were my favorite for the last 2 decades, it's so sad to know he's gone. So long.

A little shocked at how hard this hit me, maybe it was from reading the comments here. It always made me a little sad that I never met anyone in person that appreciated him the way I did. Hopefully his death will spread awareness of his work and his influence will never die.

Ook :(

I've read most of the books and listened to a great number of the audiobooks which are brilliant in their own right, I'm very sad there'll be no more from Terry but he left a body of work that really touched an awful lot of people.

GNU Terry Pratchett

I was first introduced to Terry Pratchett's work at the age of 9.

Much has changed over the years, but not the power of his books to bring forth a conspiratorial giggle as I read them. Consistently confusing bystanders then and today.

Ok, something weird here. Link to article redirects to localhost.

  curl   http://www.pjsmprints.com/                                                                                                
  <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
  <html><head>
  <title>302 Found</title>
  </head><body>
  <h1>Found</h1>
  <p>The document has moved <a href="http://127.0.0.1/">here</a>.</p>    
  </body></html>

Can anybody suggest another URL?

Edit: We'll use http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31858156 via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9191262.

ArchiveTeam - A Distributed Preservation of Service Attack was behind the reason.

I seem to have a habit of only starting to read authors right around their deaths, but for somebody who has not read him, which novel would be the best to start with?

IMO the first book, The Color of Magic, is a good place to start in introducing the Discworld universe.

The Colour of Magic is a bit weird because it's basically a Fritz Leiber parody, even down to the structure. (Spot the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser cameo in the first chapter!)

I'd probably go with Mort. It's damned good, it's tight and to the point, and it's got Death in it.

There is a handy Discworld Reading Order Diagram available at the following link :)

http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/

I can only second these recommendations. My first one was "Mort" which truly excellent since TP had found his stride by then. I can't say I remember much about "Guards! Guards!" but IMO this story arc is the best one. The whole Vimes/Vetinari "storyline" is truly masterful. (Might be coloured by Vimes and Vetinari being my two favorite characters in the entire Discworld oeuvre.)

Someone else also asked this; see here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9191618

Life long Pratchett fan. Only thing comes to mind is a quote that I don't know who to credit for

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened"

I've always heard that attributed to Dr. Seuss, but it looks like that's disputed: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss#Disputed

I like to think it was Seuss, but to be honest it doesn't sound very Seuss-ian.

I'm in the middle of Feet of Clay - he'll be in my heart as I finish it.

This makes me want to log back into the discworld MUD and pay my respects

This makes me very, very sad.

Goodnight Sir Terry, we'll always remember you.

I hope he remembered to shoot the missionaries.

Death finally catches Rincewind.

R.I.P. Greatly missed

I resent this! :,-(

He was a great man.

Site is slow/down, probably due to the amount of traffic.

Got a screenshot of the site, though: http://i.imgur.com/Ui09H2y.jpg

He will be missed so much ... he was next up to Carlin ... RIP. I just don't know what to say. I grew up with his books and have reread everything more than 5 times ...

Small gods is still one of the best books ever written ...

RIP. He brought so much food for thought, smiles and brutal social criticism. It is immeasurable loss for humanity. He was probably one of the greatest humanists ever to live ;(

In a hundred years we'll all be dead, but here and now, we are alive.” - Brutha, Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett.

RIP, Sir.

Lol redirects to 127.0.0.1

Damn! Won't some millionaire here get him the cryogenics treatment. The world should not lose a man like Terry Pratchett.

Apparently that's pissing people off. Too bad for those who feel offended. I'll stand by my statement.

Pratchett has had a profoundly positive impact on the world including my life in particular. I wanted to see him cured and flourishing to a ripe, very old age. If I could have brought about even a moonshot possibility of having that happen eventually I would. But I failed. I was too late. Some others needn't have been.

Shit. I don't know that I've ever been this sad at the death of a public person...

Alas it's too late, for his brain is dead and warm. There was a nice 'translation of a song' on today's Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality chapter (http://hpmor.com/chapter/120), I'll repost here:

    Even if the stars should die in heaven,
    Our sins can never be undone.
    No single death will be forgiven
    When fades at last the last lit sun.
    Then in the cold and silent black
    As light and matter end,
    We'll have ourselves a last look back
    And toast an absent friend.

Thank you.

He died of a form of Alzheimer's disease. Even if cryonics worked, which it doesn't, that would still be unrecoverable.

It's not clear to me if the dementia was a direct cause of death here.

Some losses that could not be truly recovered, yes, depending on the extent of cell death.

But much of the symptoms in Alzheimer's disease seems to be due to loss of function in the systems that, roughly speaking, drive the management of memories rather than those that store the memories themselves (hence, for example, possibility for relief of the symptoms in early stages by increasing cholinergic transmission), and neural memory is generally distributed, with loss of neurons or synapses translating into degradation of fidelity or acuity of the memory, rather than downright destruction. It could well be possible in principle to restore resolution to them from what remains of the representation and some assumptions, though it's certainly beyond what we can do today.

So in other words, I claim that some of what seems lost may simply be inaccessible, and some of what really is lost is neither completely nor irrecoverably so.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com