Sir Terry

“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”

– Sir Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

I’ve been trying to write this post for five days. It hasn’t been easy. It’s almost like I feel that if I press that publish button then it’s really true: Sir Terry Pratchett is really dead.

If you don’t know who Terry Pratchett is check him out in Recommended Books. He is – make that was –  the world’s greatest satirical fantasy writer and certainly one of the most prolific fantasy writers. He published over 70 books over the course of a forty-plus-year career.

But Terry Pratchett’s legacy lies in more than just the quantity of his books but in the quality. There is no one more human in their writing than Sir Terry. Reading his words feels like sitting next to a fire and being told a story by a kindly grandparent who does all the voices and maybe even adds in sound effects. Reading a Terry Pratchett book is like visiting an old friend. You never want the visit to end and you never get tired of each other’s company

It feels like I’ve lost a friend. I never actually met Terry Pratchett, but his writing was so honest and of himself that I feel as though I knew him – and I’m sure many millions of people share that feeling. In many ways, it feels like the world has lost Sir Terry for a second time. The first was when he announced that he had Alzheimers. I remember feeling like the bottom of the world had fallen out. Would he still be able to write? Would his writing be the same? Would we have to witness his deterioration? I remember feeling so sad and angry for him. If I believed in God I’m sure I would have given Him a long speaking to about the unfairness of giving one of the world’s greatest minds such a cruel disease.

But the years passed and Sir Terry kept writing and sure you could see some decline in his writing before he transitioned to dictating his books, but his later books were filled with such fire and energy. They were wonderful, some of his best work. And it seemed, as he put out book after book, like it would never end. Like he would just keep writing and writing. Like he would beat his disease.

But in the end he died. Everyone dies. I know that. I just didn’t want to believe that Sir Terry would. I don’t think anyone wanted to believe it. But the more I think about it, the more I consider it, the less sad I become, because he wrote until the very end of his life.  And he left so much behind. He will live on in his books, in the marvelous world he created. And in that sense Sir Terry is immortal, because I truly believe that he stands in the ranks of the world’s greatest writers. Right up there with Chaucer and Dickens, Austen and Shakespeare. I like to think that in the distant future, when there’s a colony on Mars, children will be reading Terry Pratchett in school to learn the art of satire.

Thank you Sir Terry

and thank you for reading.