Personal reflection on Sir Terry Pratchett

[dyllanne]

The first book I read was The Colour of Magic. I was in second year at uni and I was hanging around with the coolest people who also like sci-fi and fantasy and rock music and role-playing. Someone, may have been Rab Taylor, recommended that we read this and I couldn't even get off the first page as I was laughing so hard. As soon as I finished it I borrowed the Light Fantastic and that year Equal Rites came out.

After that I bought every book as they came out and read them right away. The annual Pratchett was always the book that skipped to the top of the to-be-read pile. I loved The Witches and The Night Watch and The Librarian, naturally. I thought that Feet of Clay was a brilliant work of literature and I loved all the Tiffany Aching books. I thought they were brilliant books and not just brilliant kids books.

I had the great good fortune to be at an Albacon where Sir Terry was a guest of honour. I think this is where the in-joke of the "rare unsigned Pratchett" came into being. He was a lovely guy and genuinely funny in real life. I was genuinely delighted when he agreed to be Guest of Honour at the Satellite 4 Eastercon although we all knew from the start that it was unlikely that he'd be well enough to attend.

And when I heard this week that he had died, I cried.

Comments

[raistllynn.livejournal.com]

Wonderful man. He genuinely loved the genre and the whole convention thing.