I have nothing to say here that hasn’t already been said more eloquently or meaningfully throughout the internet. I don’t have a story of how he mocked the scruffy copy of Hogfather I asked him to sign – I’ve never even been to a Terry signing (although I’m sure that, as most houses in this country do, we have a signed Discworld novel somewhere). I don’t have a better geek dad story than this one. I can’t even claim to have read all his novels, although I probably still have the t-shirt.
In fact, besides the now very old and possibly moth-eaten t-shirt, all I have to offer is a model of the Discworld on the back of a Mini Pick-up.
I hope that’s a suitably unique tribute to an author who has undoubtedly influenced my reading and writing over the years – if I could convey half the sense of fun and silliness that came from those early Discworld books (especially the ones with Rincewind or Gaspode the Wonder Dog in them), create a carnival of freaks remotely as memorable as those that populate Ankh-Morpork, or get away with calling a character Moist von Lipwig, I would be… well, I’d be a better author, I expect.
It is a bittersweet moment; at least Sir Terry was granted his wish not to suffer Alzheimer’s through to the bitter end. I think he’d want us to be happy about that. And as he wrote in Reaper Man:
No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.
With over 50 novels and a whole bunch of other writing loose in the world, Terry Pratchett has left a lot of ripples.
Read Terry Pratchett: