Terry Pratchett GNU

Today is the tenth anniversary of Terry Pratchett’s death.

We knew it was coming, but it wasn’t any easier.

I read The Colour of Magic just after it came out in paperback in 1985. There was a very favourable review in White Dwarf, I may have borrowed my brother’s copy before splashing out a few quid on my own copy. I’d enjoyed Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series (lightly parodied in CoM) and read the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series a year before. Conan/ Hrun the barbarian was a trope I knew and I had probably seen Schwarzenegger in the film. I later learned that Bel-Shamharoth was a parody of the Cthulu mythos. I have tried to read Lovecraft, but I can’t get on with him. Just get on with the story, already.

By the time I went to Uni in ’89 there were seven Discworld books. Pyramids, detailing Pteppic’s time at the Assassin’s Guild (modelled on public schools) in the first part had come out, not long after I’d tried (and failed) to read Tom Brown’s Schooldays. This was unrelated to Pratchett – I’d read the available Flashman books and thought I’d try the original. This did nothing to assuage my antipathy towards Victorian literature, which was based on having to drudge through Oliver Twist for O level English. I also have issues with books set in public schools – by brother loved the Jennings books, I was never keen.

Anyway, I was a fan of his work and bought the paperbacks when they came out and I could afford them. I also came across The Unadulterated Cat and, by chance, Good Omens in hardback at the irresistible price of £8.95. I was in Quiggin’s in Liverpool, looking for cheap clothes probably, and was astonished to see this for sale.

I had no idea who this Neil Gaiman person was.

Back at Loughborough, I was sharing a house with Simon, a fellow metalhead who was doing English and Drama. As is the nature of Drama types, they tended to congregate as a group. One of the group became friends with Simon’s girlfriend. Over a curry one evening, this friend and I got chatting about books and fantasy. We shared a love of Anne McCaffrey and a growing disdain for high fantasy, but she’d never read Terry Pratchett, could she borrow one?

By the time she’d borrowed all my books, we realised that we really liked each other. So much so, that we got married, bought more Pratchett books and had two children together. But not before we got to meet him and nearly poison him with a bananana dakry.

So Pterry meant a lot to us and we were saddened by his death, although we had known it was going to happen. Not as sad as when family have died, but still upset.

Not long after my dad died, I read “A Life With Footnotes”, Rob Wilkin’s biography of Sir Terry. My dad had had vascular dementia, which stripped him of his memory, his independence and his dignity. Reading the last part of the biography was difficult for me. Not only because of how accurately Rob described his final days and Terry’s decline, but because I was crying while reading it.

I’m rereading A Life With Footnotes. I keep meaning to do a re-read of all the books, revisit old favourites and maybe, finally read The Shepherd’s Crown.

But I do need to find a copy of The Unadulterated Cat.