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
Death had a statement: “THE DEATH OF THE WARRIOR OR THE OLD MAN OR THE LITTLE CHILD, THIS I UNDERSTAND, AND I TAKE AWAY THE PAIN AND END THE SUFFERING.”
fuck
I find myself unexpectedly teary-eyed.
Damn.
Yet.
Yeah. Fuck.
Not unexpected, but still far too soon. I’m sniffly and teary, too.
Bugger.
Too many, too soon.
You put Death’s words in quotes. Infidel!
I AM NOT SURE THERE IS SUCH A THING AS RIGHT. OR WRONG. JUST PLACES TO STAND.
So it goes.
poo-tee-weet
Oh bugger.
I was just listening to/watching Mark Reads Part 4 of the Light Fantastic while doing the dishes.
We will not see his like again.
DON’T THINK OF IT AS DYING. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.
We should all wear broad-brimmed hats tomorrow. That would be a fitting tribute
Fucking hell, i think i got something in my eye…
Terry Pratchett, the man, is gone…Terry Pratchett, the author, is an immortal. I will read and enjoy Thief of Time yet again in memory of the man.
Damn, what a loss.
Sad
I’m lucky. I’m a late immigrant to the Discworld. So I still look forward to many more conversations with that great mind and heart.
Waaaaaaaaaaah.
We are diminished.
I recently reread most of the Discworld novels. Now I want to do it again. Maybe I’ll reread Good Omens first, it’s been a while.
Thank you Terry, for everything.
I started reading Terry Pratchett when “Strata” came out and looked forward to every book since then. I was even privileged enough to meet him once when he came out to South Africa. I still offered to buy him a banana daiquiri, hehe. He will be sorely missed after having been a part of my life for so many years. Words fail me.
First thought: blankness.
Second thought: fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK
Third thought: there are so many people I would have rather had go at that age than him.
Terry’s last tweets:
AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.
Terry took Death’s arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.
(link to a page that is overloaded and not accessible right now)
The End.
He will most definitely be missed.
I will have to make time for a massive re-read. Just started re-re-re-re-reading Going Postal last night. So sad now.
It isn’t often that Death himself can meet his maker, after all.
Well said, Becca, well said.
I’m sad to hear this.
Neil Gaiman has a tribute: ‘Terry Pratchett isn’t jolly. He’s angry’ .
When my time comes, I’m going to try and visualize it as Pratchett’s Death. He’s not evil; he’s just a fact of nature. And he likes kittens.
According to the the beeb his death was not assisted, as he had planned to do as his alzheimer’s progressed. And yes, a re-read is called for.
Well said, indeed, Becca.
I am thinking of the bit about dwarfs not having a religion, because being a dwarf was a religion. I dunno why, just to keep from saying something that sounds religious.
I just came home from work and this ist the first thing I read on the interwebs.
I want to scream at the universe “That’s not fair!”, but I am crying instead.
Terry Pratchett has long been one of my favourite authors, and was not only handy with the old quill but also a genuinely wise and good person. It is tragic that he has been taken from us at such a relatively early age, and by such a terrible condition. I hope I can face my own end with such calm dignity when my time comes.
I think I will join others here in re-reading my favourites among his many, many wonderful books.
Bugger, I got something in the eye…
Sad. Very sad. At least his death wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be when he was campaigning for euthanasia.
Tonight I’ll read Reaper Man.
THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE IS JUST ME.
:(
At times like these I find myself mystified by some people’s reluctance to oppose death itself.
Cross-posting this from elsewhere:
I have many friends who I’ve never met. Terry Pratchett was, I have to say, the greatest of them. He gave me company, comfort, joy, laughter tears and sadness tears and new ideas. He constantly questioned my old ideas, sometimes adding to them, sometimes gently correcting them or, at times, forcing me to realise that I’d been flat-out wrong. And all with a wry, twinkly-eyed humour which never berated nor belittled.
I am sad that my friend who I never met has met his own most sympathetic and memorable character, Death. I am glad that my friend is no longer suffering. I will miss my friend, though I never met him, terribly terribly much.
To read Terry Pratchett is to see ourselves in a distorted mirror that makes us see clearly and makes us laugh at ourselves as we should. I will miss that, but at least we have the reflections of ourselves he gave us. That is a fitting monument to a life well lived.
You know, Terry Pratchett had some rather good things to say about that. Perhaps you should read them.
I mean, this is a guy who campaigned for the right to euthanasia, who had Death as one of his most popular characters, and who was very clearly aware that death can be a welcome relief as well as a terrible tragedy. If we’re going to fight against something here, surely it’s better to target the Alzheimer’s that slowly destroyed his health and his ability to write.
Wish I could find our copy of “Hogfather” – there’s one bit in it where Death says if you took the universe apart you would not find one atom of justice, or love, or mercy, that these things exist only because humans made them exist. Better written than that. I cannot find the book.
He died much too young and there is nothing good to say about that, nothing good at all.
I’ve been reading Pratchett’s books for half my life, now. They were wonderful and sharp and kind. He was part of making me who I am.
I have also been to a couple of the conventions and been amazed by the sense of community, and by the extent to which the world he created came alive there. Sir Pterry made the world a better place in all sorts of ways, and I will miss him terribly.
“I AM SADNESS.”
NOOOOO!
SQUEAK
Since Hogfather keeps coming up, I will (re)say that the Good King Wenceslas scene in that book is the clearest illustration ever of how privilege can make you into a total jerk even though you’re trying to be a good person. The poor man just wants to be left alone with some nice bangers and mash; he doesn’t know what to do with your precious lark’s tongues in aspic.
And this is why I will complete the canon (happy to say I have about 20 books left before I run out). When I cracked my first Discworld book, I fully expected wit and wordplay; I was not expecting the clever plotting, the engrossing character arcs, or the brilliant social commentary. I have kept my queue full since then.
Fecking embuggerance.
Horace is said to have not eaten a mouse.
What the mouse said is not recorded, but some of its grand-grand-grand-…-grand mice are said to have commissioned roundworld.
A more generous spirit would be hard to find. I will miss and re-read and be glad of him for a very long time, likely for as long as I can hold a book or see a page.
I’ve read precisely **one** discworld book. Sad to hear of his passing. Wee Free Men was mostly very entertaining and all, but to me Pratchett is a human being, not a book series. That makes it much sadder.
Best to Pratchett’s fam.
#27: As far as Discworld dwarves and religion went, I always liked the part about how although they lacked religion, they did have gods, in part because “when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it’s nice to be able to blaspheme”.
@24:
:-(
Beautiful eulogy. Gaiman has recently become one of my favorite authors, and that tribute sealed the deal. Brings whole new meaning to the concept of “anger”, i.e. not just ‘blind fury’; but fervent dissatisfaction at how things currently are. Especially at things that can be changed. “Anger” is just a word to encapsulate a sincere, deep, motivation to act toward making those changes.
*weep*
Damn.
Douglas Adams, then George Carlin, Robin Williams, and now Terry Pratchett.
It feels like the lights are going out on planet earth. Soon to leave only the dull, malignant glow of humorless rage, religious fervor grown fat feeding on fear and ignorance, ideological rigidity, and self-serving sophistry.
And amongst the social commentary, which many are rightly focussing on, some beautiful word-craft…
Goodbye, pTerry. You’ll be remembered fondly as an intelligent, witty, humane and human author.
ledasmom @38
Death and Susan are talking.
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 IS 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.
ledasmom:
“All right,” said Susan, “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need … fantasies to make life bearable”
NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth Fairies? Hogfathers?”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE, DUTY. MERCY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
REALLY? 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 YOU ACT LIKE THERE WAS SOME SORT OF RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED”
“Yes. But people have to believe that or what’s the point?”
MY POINT EXACTLY
My condolences to Sir Pratchett’s family and friends.
:(
A sad day indeed, a rare writer who will not be surpassed in word smithing for a long time.
CATS ARE NICE.
EVERY LIVING THING NEEDS TIME. AND WHEN IT RUNS OUT, THEY DIE.
I was in the middle of rereading The Watch series. I think I’ll just continue with that, only I will laugh through the tears now.
Buggrit, Millenium hand and shrimp!
i haz a sad
He was so … human.
Monstrous Regiment. Small Gods. The whole Watch series.
The Golems.
He was always about people. Of whatever shape or size.
I learned so much.
I am really glad I got to meet him at a convention in Minneapolis one time. I talked to him about Susan’s Sto Helit’s hair. I am very sad at the news. My daughter and I enjoy the joke of saying “there’s a lot of good eating on one of those” in many situations.
The quote is from Small Gods.
I’m saddened.
However, there’s one last novel scheduled: this fall, The Shepherd’s Crown will be released.
It is the fifth and last Tiffany Aching book.
:-( :-( :-( :-( :-(
German tweets say the world is a bit flatter now and mention the cemetery of small gods.
I’m off to cut up some onions for dinner so I have an excuse for crying.
Buggrit.
I hope he at least gets to ride Binky.
It’s a small consolation, but TP’s daughter will be continuing to write Discworld books. (Probably with Sir Terry’s long-time assistant). I think at the time that he announced it he said: “Rhianna grew up in Discworld. No one knows it better.”
From Markita Lynda—threadrupt@24’s link
This is why I always liked Pratchett. He wrote with such fearless, razor sharp whit about the injustices in the world. Sometimes it was so sharp you didn’t even realize you were the one bleeding (metaphorically) until later. At the same time he seemed to have faith (small f) in human beings and that someday we will get things right.
Well, crud. I hope Terry Pratchett has arrived in secular heaven.
“There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.”
—Terry Pratchett
Dannysichel @60 says there’s one final Tiffany Aching book coming — are there any others after Raising Steam? I was really hoping he’d get around to writing a Moist von Lipvig book about taxes, as the end of Making Money kind of hinted.
After the shock and quite a few tears, I think what makes his death so hard to bear is that when he went, he took cities and worlds with him. I have had some health issues lately, and thinking about Death, his character, was a great comfort.
I can still do that, of course, but Sir Terry’s voice will not give Death new words anymore. I’m going to miss that.
Condolences to his family, and all of us who grieve today.
When I read this, I cried a bit, because it needed to be done. Then I went to Target to pick up a few things, because someone had to do that, too.
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books rekindled my love of reading. I first read a copy of Thud! at my local library, and I love it enough to start collecting them at Barnes & Noble. I read them walking outside mostly, because I never seemed to have decent lighting at home. When I re-read them, I flash back to where I was when I first read it. I’ve never seen a writer so witty, clever, imaginative or human before, and I doubt I’ll see one again. His writings changed my life. At least he can continue enriching the world though his works and inspire the next generation.
How do they rise up?
Alethea Kuiper-Belt @68
They rise heads up, heads up, heads up, they rise heads up, heads up high!
It’s a pity pTerry couldn’t have lasted until the 25th of May, that’s the anniversary of The People’s Revolution of the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May and the day to wear the lilac. It’s also Towel Day, when we should carry our towels and DON’T PANIC!
Shit. Disregard what I said in #63 about new Discworld books.
Well, clearly her father trusted her to know what’s best for Discworld, I guess we just have to as well. (And maybe hope a little)
Anyway, I’m gonna drink and watch Going Postal.
We do, supposedly, have this to look forward to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Watch_%28TV_series%29
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck. Fuck Alzheimer’s. That is all.
Al Dente #70:
Somehow, I’d never noticed that coincidence of dates. Given Night Watch was published only a year after Adams’ death, I wonder if it was deliberate.
@71, Ragutis:
I don’t know whether to hope or not. She may well be a great writer, but she won’t be Terry Pratchett, and her Discworld would inevitably not be Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. (The same goes for anyone else.) One of the joys of the Discworld books is the way Pratchett had this broad knowledge and would include offbeat bits of history and science and things, and his later books are noticeably more filled with this stuff because he was accumulating knowledge as he aged. His daughter may share his outlook on life and have writing skills just like his, but she won’t have his mind.
The same goes for his assistant(s) if any. Much though I want there to be another book, Snuff felt a little off and Raising Steam had a bunch of things in it which felt like someone else who admired the books but was not Terry Pratchett was writing them — whether it was Pratchett himself, or his assistant. (The whole bit with The Sweeper in Raising Steam was almost embarrassing.)
I have yet to read a book by someone who took over from a dead famous author, which was anywhere near as good a book as the other books by the dead author, even when the replacement author was working from notes left by the dead author and a good author in their own right — look at the awful Albert Campion novels by Margery Allingham’s husband, for example.
Damn it…first Iain Banks, then Douglas Adams, then Leonard Nimoy, and now Terry Pratchett.
We’ve lost too many good people in the last few years. And Pratchett is the one that affects me most. He is the best example of a humanist I’ve ever known. His books kept me going through some very difficult times, and I always recommend them to friends. He got it. If I were one to believe in things like this I would say he was a type of living saint.
I’m at the verge of tears, which would be for the first time in almost half a decade. Nothing’s coming (maybe I’m not human enough any more, more’s the loss), but this feels like losing a family member.
I, too, wish he’d made it to May 25. Lilacs do not do all that well here, so I bought a lilac scented candle while humming, “All the little angels rise, rise up,” to myself. And I will be re-reading all the Watch stories first, and then the witch stories and save the DEATH stories for last, because that is appropriate.
He was enormously gifted and used that talent to turn cynicism to hope, one watchman at a time.
Thank you, Sir Terry. Thanks for all of it.
My condolences to all who mourn.
“No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she 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.”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man
Buggrit… :(
First thing I read online today. What a shitty way to start a day. I didn’t cry though. At least not much. Damn…
I think it says something about his love for his readers that he was simultaneously reputed to be responsible for 1% of all book sales in the UK and the subject of a common gag about owning a “rare unsigned copy” of one of his books.
Sad, condolences to the family. Still not sure why Alzeheimers affects so many people who actually use their brain as opposed to those who don’t. Should be the other way around….
Can I just start reading any of his books or is there an order?
They definitely have an order but reading them in strict sequence isn’t vital. There are a number of story lines that progress and overlap and some are definitely best read in order. There are the Wizards, the Witches, the Watch and the Death series in particular which make better reading in order. Find yourself a list of his books in order and start at the first, which is The Colour Of Magic. I happen to have nearly every one and once in a while read through one of those series.
fergl100 – There’s a flowchart which links books with related themes and suggests entry points:
http://io9.com/how-to-read-terry-pratchetts-discworld-series-in-one-h-1567312812
Thanks Lofty and Chip. “Colour of Magic” for me tonite.
BTW, I enjoyed “The Colour of Magic” a lot, and it is a good place to start. However, it is far from equal to the best in the series. You’d think he would have run out of new ideas after a dozen books about Discworld, but no. They just kept getting better.
Agreeing with those who note that he got better; Colour of Magic is fun, but not necessarily the best place to start. Start at the beginning of the Witches arc, for example, or the Guards arc … and come back to Colour of Magic after getting a feel for the wonderful world he created.
The God of Evolution really really likes beetles …
and on his island there are teleological plants and animals that evolve at great speed specifically in order to be useful. Pratchett has no need to mention the comforting banana in order to royally take the piss out of it.
And Small Gods is – hell, if he had written nothing else, Small Gods alone would be an oeuvre to be proud of. And it’s only one peak in a whole range.
xkcd
Terry Pratchett
There is now a petition asking Death to bring him back:
https://www.change.org/p/death-bring-back-terry-pratchett?lang=en-GB
chigau,
that made me cry all over again
Moggie: “There is now a petition asking Death to bring him back”
NO
No offence to Reg Shoe but we don’t need a ZombieTerry.
http://sandara.deviantart.com/art/Shaking-hands-with-Death-519841642
Ragutis #93
Thank you for that link.
Beautiful.
Beatrice
Me too.
chigau,
re: petition
Death knew that to tinker with the fate of one individual could destroy the whole world. He knew this. The knowledge was built into him.
To Bill Door, he realised, it was so much horse elbows.
OH, DAMN, he said.
And walked into the fire.
Ragutis @ 93
Wow. That smacked me in the gut. Thanks for sharing. *wibble*
My condolences to his family, and my thanks to Terry who was so good at making me think while making me laugh.
He didn’t die of Alzheimer’s, but of pneumonia.
Top comment:
“Death – are you sure you’re
ready to meet your maker?”
GNU Sir Terry Pratchett