At the end of last week I had decided to follow up two recent posts about the books I remember reading as a child and the books I studied at school, with a third post looking at some of the books I chose to read as a young adult and how that shaped my reading from then on.
Almost certainly that post, had I written it, would have featured the books of Terry Pratchett quite heavily, because there was no doubt that at the age of 15 Terry was my favourite author. More so than even Tolkien, Douglas Adams, Raymond E Feist, Grant Naylor, Michael Crichton and whoever else I was reading at the time.
But as I was clambering into bed that night thinking about what I would write in the morning, I quickly scanned the news on my phone and my heart sank. Although I knew Sir Terry had been seriously ill with a form of early onset Alzheimer's for some time, it came as quite a shock to read about his passing on the BBC.
The following day I was pretty melancholy, though it took me a while to recognise it. But that evening as I read a piece written by Terry's friend, Neil Gaiman, I realised that Sir Terry's books had been an almost constant companion of mine for 25 years, most of them purchased on the day they were published, read within a few days, with the next instalment waited for impatiently. I now understand how lucky and rather spoilt we were back then that Pratchett was able to deliver 2 or 3 of these brilliantly written stories a year.
So for the first time since I was 13, there will be no new Discworld book for me to look forward too, assuming of course there isn't a book published posthumously. Even if I haven't kept up with the last few books as diligently in the past few years as I've travelled around, and I haven't even read the most recent book, Steam, it's still sad to note that there won't be another.
The first book in the Discworld series I read was Reaper Man, in 1991. It is still my favourite Discworld Novel to this day, although Men At Arms runs it close.
But my favourite Pratchett book is not a Discworld novel at all, but rather his joint story with Neil Gaiman, Good Omens, published around the same time as Reaper Man. It is dark and deliciously funny look at a possible End of the World and my first introduction to a kids book (sort of), that features kids, but doesn't dumb things down for the younger reader, nor, in fact, dumb them up for the older ones.
This was something that I have kept with me for many years and it's fair to say that Pratchett's work, more than anyone else, has been a direct influence on both my desire to write and the style in which I create my stories now, for better or worse (usually worse in my case).
I was lucky enough to meet Terry once at a book signing during the marketing of Soul Music. He signed my copy of the book and then very politely listened as I mumbled my regret that I hadn't also brought my copy of Good Omens. He then quipped that it didn't matter as it would still be worthless because Neil was the talented one, before moving on to the person next in the queue.
Although I didn't know him, that brief exchange aside, his work was part of my life on a regular basis for longer than nearly all my friends. So in a weird way, it felt like he was one of them. Therefore I will miss Terry... and Rincewind, Granny Weatherwax, Sam Vines and the rest. I'll raise a glass of something stale in the virtual Mended Drum, get a little hung-under (the day before) and perhaps even say a mournful "ook" before moving on.
Thank you, Sir Terry Pratchett.
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