The man goes up more in my estimation every day.
Terry Pratchett's unfinished works flattened by steamroller
A hard drive containing the unfinished books of Terry Pratchett has been destroyed by a steamroller, in fulfilment of the late author's last wishes. The works were crushed by a vintage John Fowler & Co steamroller at the Great Dorset Steam Fair, ahead of the opening of a new exhibition about the author’s life and work. It is …
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:16 GMT Rafael #872397
I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
... but never had the chance to read his work*. Is there a suggested reading order?
*Before any of you scream "Burn the heathen!!!1!": I am not a native speaker, and the selection of translated fiction books available when I was young was meager. Now I can read those in English, and my teen kids already enjoy books from Gaiman, we would like to see what we've missed all those years.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:37 GMT Amblyopius
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
Google the L-space and you will find the Discworld Reading Order guide. There are multiple story lines and you are advised to read them in order within the story lines but can pick which one you want to do first. There will be a bit of overlap but that's fine.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
This is one of the better charts I've seen ...
Opinions will vary wildly depending on who you ask, but I'd start with either the 'Witches' or 'Watch' stories and then return to the early stuff (TCoM, LF) when you've got a few under your belt.
If you only read *one*, make it 'Mort' - not only is it hilariously funny, but I think it's when PTerry really hit his stride. "Pyramids" is still one of my personal favourites, though.
EDIT: Don't be put off by the Tiffany Aching books being branded as 'young adult', either - they're very good novels in their own right.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:25 GMT Scotthva5
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
Most of the Discworld novels are standalone and can be read in any order, however it is *suggested* by the author to read from the beginning (The Colour of Magic) and the witch books (Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Lords and Ladies, Masquerade and Carpe Jugulum really do need to be read in order. Enjoy, Pratchett's work is brilliant.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:52 GMT Steve K
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
Bad form, I know, replying to my own post, but while we are discussing gifted authors departing us far too early, I would recommend "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" and possibly "The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul" (not as good) by Douglas Adams
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 15:00 GMT Alan Brown
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
"I would recommend "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" and possibly "The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul" (not as good) by Douglas Adams"
And I would thoroughly recommend _avoiding_ the TV serialisations of Dirk Gently. DNA was a brilliant TV scriptwriter but whoever turned these into TV programs wasn't (HHGTTG TV and movies were both brilliant because DNA had his hand on the directors' throats.)
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 18:17 GMT HandleAlreadyTaken
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
>I think Dirk Gently was the best book Adams wrote.
I agree - and I believe it shows Adams' evolution as a writer paralleled Pratchett's in some ways. They both started with gag-driven works, with little or no characterization, and with no plot to speak of beyond a flimsy framework to hang gags to - that's particularly the case for Adams' Hitchhiker books, but also for the first few Discworld books (especially the Rincewind the Wizzard series). As they both matured as writers, their later books become less dependent on gags, the plots become interesting in themselves, and the characters grow deeper and better fleshed.
Pratchett grew immeasurably as a writer - amazingly, without losing his humor; his later books are still laugh out loud funny. I think the Dirk Gently books show Adams was following a similar path. It's a tragedy Adams died so young; I think his best work was still ahead of him.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 12:29 GMT Alister
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
I would recommend "Good Omens" (an unrelated collaboration with Neil Gaiman).
I noticed earlier this month that Good Omens is being filmed by BBC / Amazon, with Michael Sheen as Aziraphale and David Tennant as Crowley.
No news yet as to who will play Adam, Newt or Anathema, but Tennant as Crowley is an inspired choice in my view.
I would also like to put forward David Jason as Shadwell, I reckon he's made for the part...
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 12:34 GMT TRT
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
Never liked the TV adaptations. No-one has found a good way of doing footnotes* on TV really, nor of the linguistic punning that Pratchett excelled at.
*Well, apart from maybe the 80s version of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but that lent itself to the concept of "Guide Entries". I don't know how Disc World would take to having some sort of narrator character.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 13:04 GMT Alister
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
@TRT
Never liked the TV adaptations. No-one has found a good way of doing footnotes on TV really, nor of the linguistic punning that Pratchett excelled at.
I agree, to some extent, and I was particularly unhappy with Sky's adaptation of TCOM, but that was as much about the casting, David Jason was all wrong as Rincewind.
However, I reckon that in some ways Good Omens lends itself more to TV adaptation than perhaps Terry's mainstream works do.
Added to that, of course, is that Neil Gaiman is writing the screenplay, so is unlikely to stuff it up as much as they did with some of the others.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 16:39 GMT Tom 38
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
Richard Coyle was an epic Albert Spangler/Moist von Lipwig, however the absolute standout from Going Postal was the inimitable Charles Dance as Vetinari.
I'd always fancied Rincewind as a younger Rhys Ifans; tall, thin, scraggly beard, early 30s in age, slight look of failed academia and desperation, not some bumbling old man who looked like he could barely run 5 metres before collapsing. A Rincewind that cannot run, oh my days...
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Thursday 31st August 2017 02:09 GMT JimboSmith
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
Richard Coyle was an epic Albert Spangler/Moist von Lipwig, however the absolute standout from Going Postal was the inimitable Charles Dance as Vetinari.
I agree Charles Dance was inspired and brilliant casting as was David Suchet as Reacher Gilt.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 17:11 GMT Hyper72
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
"Sister Mary headed through the night-time hospital with the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness safely in her arms. She found a bassinet and laid him down in it. He gurgled. She gave him a tickle."
-- The antichrist is born (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:28 GMT Joe Werner
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
Even for adults I would suggest the "young readers" novels set on "the chalk" - they are incredibly well written - and the Wee Free Men (fairies... sorts of - and also the name of the first book) are really fun to read out loud (as a non-native speaker I sort of have to do that to understand them, Crivens!)
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 12:45 GMT Kane
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
@Joe Werner
"...the Wee Free Men (fairies... sorts of - and also the name of the first book)"
Ahem, "Pictsies" I think you'll find. Unless you're looking to commit suicide?
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
Is there a suggested reading order?
Absolutely. Come up to a shelf (or two, or, in my case four) of Pratchett's books. Close your eyes. Pull a book at random. Read it. You probably won't be disappointed.
If I had to pick a personal favorite, it would probably be "Witches Abroad" or "Feet of Clay".
P.S. I really miss "Diskworld Noir". May be I should try to spin it again, in Sir Terry's honour.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 10:34 GMT Ben Bonsall
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
+1 For Discworld Noir - Hell of a lot better entertainment vs frustration compared to the other Discworld games.
Never! unless there is a point in a point and click where you literally have to try everything with everything else until some ridiculous pun emerges, it's not a point and click.
Also, the 3d interface was annoying. Ask me about how Grim Fandango was the beginning of the end.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:34 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
Rafael,
Burn him! In a wicker steamroller perhaps...
I don't think there's any reading order. There are a few books which work better in sequence, but even there it really doesn't matter. It's just that some have the same characters in them, so it's nicer to come in at the beginning of their story-arc, rather than half-way through.
The one thing I would say is that you shouldn't read in chronological order. The Colour of Magic and the Light Fantastic (the only one that is a direct sequel) aren't the same as the rest of them. They're parodies of fantasy, and I'd argue they aren't as good.
He then started developing his style where he was no longer parodying fantasy. He was using fantasy to parody reality. So the next two, Equal Rites and Mort were completely different. But I don't think they're as good, because he was still developing his craft.
I would personally start with Wyrd Sisters. It's sort of a Shakespeare parody, but there are jokes within jokes. And it has the witches, who are some of the fans' favourite characters. Although they first turn up in Equal Rites (about a witch going to an all-male wizard university). But I wouldn't start there.
Or for a different theme start with the City Watch in Guards! Guards! And meet another group of favourite characters. If you like them you can then read along with their books, then start picking up others. Or just accept you like him, and go back and read from the beginning.
As a final point, you could also start with his later stuff. When he was at his peak. In which case, start with a new character with Wee Free Men - which was marketed as a childrens book in the sequence, but I really enjoyed as a 40-year-old.
Or maybe The Truth. He worked for a local paper, and so has some fun satirising it. It's more standalone, but at a period when he was turning out lots of his best books.
I found this list of his Discworld books by theme and in order, which may help.
I wish you many hours of happy reading. And hopefully laughing.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
> Is there a suggested reading order?
I really would start with the first two with the proviso that if you don't enjoy them all that much you don't stop at that point.
There are one or two characters an concepts introduced for the first time (they do get introduced again) but the main reason is to see how much he improved.
He started well but I don't think he would be remembered anything like as fondly if he'd just pumped out a few dozen more of those books (which I am sure is what publishers would have been happy with).
It would be really interesting to know how you get on with TP as a non native speaker - I doubt there will be any problem understanding the words but it is possible that quite a lot of the meaning will be harder to grasp (and not just because there are some cultural references that may not be universal).
He's the polar opposite of Stephen Donaldson who is also a hilarious fantasy writer but much less deliberately so.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 13:38 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
I really would start with the first two with the proviso that if you don't enjoy them all that much you don't stop at that point.
Mr Anon,
I don't like that suggestion. I don't think it's fair to make people do the less fun stuff first, in order to pay for the good later. And I think you also need to have read a bit of fantasy first, to see what 'the Colour of Magic' is laughing at.
Much better to read the other stuff first, then come back if you're enjoying it. Whereas I think the first few books can be a bit off-putting. Lots of people have said to start with Mort, but I personally feel that's one of his weaker ones - while he was still learning to be an author, and developing a style.
I've never even been motivated to go back and re-read 'Stata' and 'Dark Side of the Sun', and I suspect if those had been the first of his books I'd tried, I'd never have read any more. Colour of Magic is good, but less good and of a much narrower appeal.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 19:13 GMT Alan J. Wylie
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
He's the polar opposite of Stephen Donaldson who is also a hilarious fantasy writer but much less deliberately so
Two words: "Clench Racing"
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 12:25 GMT macjules
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Pick any book at random: you will not be disappointed.
If you must have a recommendation, my tuppence worth would be:
Moving Pictures, for a very funny and irreverent parallel of early Hollywood
Small Gods, for the same about religion and philosophy.
Nightwatch The venality of politicians and the total idiocy of politics and knee-jerk reaction laws summed up in one book (actually in just one page) and an absolute joy to read.
Going Postal As above, but for capitalism and marketing departments ... and not forgetting the National Lottery.
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Friday 1st September 2017 06:23 GMT Terje
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
I for one would recommend Pyramids for a "try before you buy" introduction to the discworld books, as it's probably the most stand alone book, and he's well into his stride. As a close second I would recommend The lost continent, here the recurring characters are limited to the faculty of unseen university.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 13:13 GMT Nick Kew
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
I'll second those who say skip the first two (very much lesser) works.
After those, they fall into different periods. The earlier ones (the Witches, and the Rincewind ones) are the most directly funny, tending to thoughtful slapstick. My own startingpoint was the witches. Later he gets more humanistic and a bit darker: the peak of that would be Night Watch. And he did go downhill towards the end as the alzheimers set in.
Note that there are *lot* of literary and cultural references: if you're not English, you may get less out of them (but don't let that put you off). And allusions: the Pork Futures Warehouse described the financial crisis before it happened, while "Interesting Times" (published 1994) could have been about "9/11" in almost the same sense as Arthur Miller's Crucible was about McCarthyism.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 13:30 GMT Tom 7
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
As an anal retentive I'd recommend reading them in chronological order. You will be heading back to read the first two anyway so why not enjoy them without the expectations the later works will give you.
The Colour Of Magic is a great book anyway and the Light Fantastic a bit better but these are just the blue touchpaper but it you know there's a firework display coming up then fizzing blue touchpaper is rather captivating.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 13:30 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
The nice thing about all the literary references in Pratchett is that he was far more well-read than I am - but there's sometimes a lovely sense of recognition as I come across something that I already know from a Discworld novel.
For example, I'm pretty sure I read Witches Abroad before I read Hemingway. There's a little 2 page parody in there that I only got when I read 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'. Which is also a great book by the way, but ever so slightly less cheerful than anything written by Sir Terry.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 17:50 GMT Triggerfish
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
The first two were definitely more pastiche but if you have read a lot of fantasy books they are still worth a go. They don't truly stand up to anything after Mort though.
However they did introduce me to Fritz Leiber so thanks Sir Terry for that as well.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 14:22 GMT IHateWearingATie
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
I wouldn't start with Unseen Academicals or Raising Steam, two of the last Discworld series as I'm not sure they are as good as the others. Felt like he was losing his bite, particularly in Raising Steam *ducks and runs for cover*
Hard to pick a favourite, but I would probably start with Guards Guards and then follow the Commader Vimes focused ones for a bit.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 20:29 GMT Kernel
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
"I wouldn't start with Unseen Academicals or Raising Steam, two of the last Discworld series as I'm not sure they are as good as the others. Felt like he was losing his bite, particularly in Raising Steam *ducks and runs for cover*"
Personally I'd add "Strata" to that (happily, very) short list - vaguely Disc World related and an attempt to explain how Disc World came into being, but it doesn't really fit with the rest of the series.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 17:12 GMT Daniel von Asmuth
Re: I'm touched by the sanity of this request...
Frank Herbert has passed on, but his son Brian continues the Dune saga.
John R. R. Tolkien saild to elevenhome, but his son Christopher continues to edit his work.
Isaac Asimov left the planet, but other authors continue to expand his Foundation series.
Now consider what Pratchett wrote about death....
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Thursday 31st August 2017 11:46 GMT Alien8n
Re: I'm touched by the sanity of this request...
@DVA There are other examples as well of books finished or continued by other authors. Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time series was completed by Brandon Sanderson for example. However they all have one thing in common, they wrote straight sci-fi/fantasy. As much as it pains me to say it, no one else could write Discworld the way pTerry did. You only have to read his collaborations to see that he was at his best with his Discworld books. Good Omens is the only one that comes close to capturing that magic, but then Neil Gaiman is rather special as an author in his own right as well.
That's not to say we've heard the last of the Discworld though. He left an awful lot of source material for his daughter to adapt for film, TV and games.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 00:19 GMT Rafael #872397
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
OP here -- thanks for all the suggestions! I've checked and there are translations of several Pratchett books to Portuguese (for the young kids), and a good selection of e-books too (for me, eyes are not what they used to be).
Thanks again!
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Saturday 2nd September 2017 10:12 GMT cortland
Re: I'm touched by the weirdness of this request...
It almost doesn't matter; each stands by itself, but the development of his writing over the years, and the complexity of their combined plots, suggests that a deeper appreciation might be had by reading in chronological (copyright age) order.
Some of his biographical work explains how he wrote (and how he thought), and may profitably be read before diving into the ocean of his words.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
A man is not dead while his name is still spoken ...
There was a sad inevitability to this, although it's good to see that PTerry's final wishes are being respected.
I guess a firkin great steamroller is rather more .... theatrical than a hard-disk shredder (plus, in the latter case I imagine there wouldn't be much left to exhibit)
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 12:11 GMT Stevie
the steamroller didn't do all that much damage,
Should have given all the "to be crushed" things to that mad Finn infesting YouTube with his hydraulic press.
Not much survives contact with him, not even paper.
Of course, there will be a backup that somehow survived so the "estate authorized" travesty monster can be released again.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 12:46 GMT TimR
Re: A man is not dead while his name is still spoken ...
"El Reg still puts out the overhead I believe."
Indeed they do
HTTP/2.0 200 OK
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 12:45:21 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Cf-Railgun: 99375e10e7 0.41 0.145329 0030 e6be
Vary: Accept-Encoding
X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett, Lester Haines
X-Reg-Bofh: PFY01
Server: cloudflare-nginx
CF-RAY: 3967d8c2dfe33822-ATL
Content-Encoding: gzip
X-Firefox-Spdy: h2
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 13:10 GMT TimR
Re: A man is not dead while his name is still spoken ...
I noticed Lester when I copy/pasted it, but forgot to mention it
Looking again, we've also got BOFH & PFY
Wondering if I can get away with tinkering with our proxies now.... The only time I've done something "slightly unprofessional" like this was to use the HTTP 418 (I'm a teapot) code to flag an unusual non standard condition
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 13:21 GMT Aladdin Sane
Re: A man is not dead while his name is still spoken ...
In my prior job I had a couple of PHP web applications that included the clacks overhead. Made no difference to the lusers, and was far from the least professional thing in them (prefixing all error codes with PEBKAC was probably the least professional thing).
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 12:50 GMT Prst. V.Jeltz
Re: A man is not dead while his name is still spoken ...
I hadnt heard of the gnu / clacks thing before. Beautiful . What better memorial could there be? especially as he thought of the idea himself , and it was honored by armies of techie fans around the world. Those dictators with 50ft gold statues can go suck it - they'll never get the GNU!
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 19:19 GMT Alan J. Wylie
Re: A man is not dead while his name is still spoken ...
El Reg still puts out the overhead I believe
Indeed. Lester Haines too. I just hope the FF extension keeps on working with Multiprocess and WebExtensions
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:10 GMT JimC
I wonder
You can quite understand the author not wanting some half arsed slung together lash up of his old work, but on the other hand it would be nice have a little bit more. To my mind though the last book shows distinct signs of having needed another revision by the master's hand, so would I really truly want to have things that were even less complete against his name?
[well if I'm truly honest, I suppose the answer is that I don't think they should be published or made public, but *I* would like a copy]
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:20 GMT Teiwaz
Re: I wonder
I've mixed feelings about it.
On one hand, it saves us all from any potentially mediocre cement and plaster job by some contract author.
On the other, some musicians unfinished symphonies are treasured, although my feelings have always been mixed as regards Salmon of Doubt - it left me bitter sweet.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 12:21 GMT Alistair
Re: I wonder
I don't.
Frank Herbert -- and the abomination that has happened since.
Anne McCaffery -- and the even more complete abomination that is her son.
Numerous attempts to revive and recycle other outstanding authors works by people not even remotely connected to the life that laid down the core elements. I applaud the man for ensuring that no one defaces his work.
(and I've only read !one! of his works, and honestly I couldn't recall which one......but it was loads of fun reading)
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 14:45 GMT Teiwaz
Re: I wonder
Frank Herbert -- and the abomination that has happened since.
Anne McCaffery -- and the even more complete abomination that is her son.
The F. Herbert ones were also mostly son follows up...I still don't believe where the story ended up was where Frank would have taken it, never mind the glaring lack of deep wisdom the sequels have compared to the Masters works.
I thought the Brian Sanderson completion of Wheel of Time was rather seamless - I appreciated not being left hanging in when Robert Jordan departed before finishing.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 12:27 GMT Farnet
Re: I wonder
For me I literally took decades to read the wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, and it had some fantastic stuff and unfortunately some pretty mediocre stuff, but when Robert sadly passed away and the epic story hadn't finished I was really relieved when a ghost writer was hired to finish off the wheel of times, last few books........
.... until I read them (especially the very last one).... OMG (no spoilers) not impressed in the slightest, and there seemed to be a public outcry on all the fans forums...
So like others I have mixed feelings about it all as TP is a hero and has been with me throughout my early adult life (and now grumpy bastard age) and provided me with humour when I needed it, I will sorely miss the fact that there aren't going to be new stories (I always loved passing the supermarkets new releases in hardback and being seriously happy when I spot a new TP Discworld story, felt like being a kid again), but after being burnt by the Wheel of Time series.... not sure...
Would be interested in the themes he was writing about.... ie more Ankh Morpork based storied etc?!?
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Thursday 31st August 2017 07:58 GMT Trilkhai
Re: I wonder
It's a shame that Pratchett didn't ask another close relative or friend to finish what he was working on, rather than asking his daughter — I wouldn't be ready to even seriously contemplate the idea for years in her position...
One of my other longtime favorite comedic-fantasy authors (Diana Wynne Jones) instead asked one of her sisters to consider completing her final in-progress novel after her death. Her sister did eventually step up, and did a good enough job that very few people can tell where she took over.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 08:24 GMT Aladdin Sane
Re: I wonder
Rhianna Pratchett's writing The Watch, so while there won't be any more books, there will be additional Discworld content.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 06:23 GMT tfewster
Re: I wonder
L-space: "one can read any book ever written, any book that will be written at some point and books that were planned for writing that were not, as well as any book that could possibly be written"
I don't want to see a second-rate takeover. But I hope someone like Neil Gaiman looked though Pterrys notes and memorised some of the unpublished genius puns, pastiches and plots for a completely different world
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Thursday 31st August 2017 10:35 GMT The Indomitable Gall
Re: I wonder
I think he was right to ask it, and I say the absolute proof of this is the Sky TV adaptations.
David Jason is one of my all-time favourite actors (Dangermouse is still his best work, incidentally).
But David Jason is also the quintessence of institutionalised "national treasure" -- they dragged Only Fools And Horses out well past its sell-by date, and made it all soppy and sentimental, and then when they had finally cancelled it, they brought it back to give it a happy ending twice, completely against the core point of the original concept. People kept watching it even after it became essentially unwatchable, simply because it was Only Fools And Horses, and in their heads it was "great". And the "national treasure" pull was so strong that they even made that god-awful young Del-boy series Rock and Chips, which was so meta in its double-nostalgia it made your head spin.
Then there was A Touch of Frost. It was a fantastic series. They had a great lead character, well acted by Jason. He was a bit old, but it was fine. They kept convincing him not to retire, and talking him back into the studio for "one more series", until we had a TV detective a good decade beyond retiral age, who presumably needed a stunt double for any run of more than a few metres. But we can't cancel A Touch of Frost, can we? It's a national treasure! And the writing and direction got really, really crap towards the end. The second-last series was so dire I'm surprised they even bothered to commission the last one. And the last involved some really sad stuff in the run-up to the finale, yet they still painted it as a happy ending, because national treasures always need a happy ending... even if that happy ending is at the funeral of their best friend. Shoddy, shoddy writing.
So that brings us back to Discworld. Rincewind was the wizard who ran away from everything, so 68-year-old David Jason was not the right man for the character by a long chalk. The only reason to include Jason was... he's a national treasure. And that still wouldn't have been enough if Discworld hadn't been... a national treasure. People watched it because... national treasure.
If his writings had survived, that whole national treasure thing would have led to loveless stringing out of the series to satisfy our lust for national treasure.
The very symbolic way in which it was done also cements in fans' consciousness exactly how much Pratchett is against that, and kills the commercial viability of national-treasure-pot-boilerism, because many of them would see the writing of a non-Pratchett Discworld novel as betraying their man.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:47 GMT I ain't Spartacus
I think it was just a joke. And his estate has the resources to be silly, so why not?
If anyone wants to do an academic study of his work, then maybe in 50 years this stuff would be interesting to look at. Maybe he'll be taught in English Literature by that time?
I really liked the Salmon of Doubt. The first couple of chapters of unfinished book starts were rubbish, but I bought it for the collection of his journalism and essays. And that was great.
I feel Adams only wrote 6 good books. The first 3 Hitch Hikers, the 2 Dirk Gently (his best I think), and Last Chance to See.
Pratchett didn't have the same writing-demons. I suspect that if he had early ideas that he really wanted written, he'd have got round to writing them.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 12:01 GMT JimC
> If anyone wants to do an academic study of his work
He's on record as despising the academic study thing, and as ensuring that all works in progress were destroyed once the final edit was complete.
He had a point I think, there are a good number of authors (CS Lewis, Isaac Asimov for two) on record as stating that all the analyses of their work that they had seen were utterly wide of the mark. So its unlikely post mortem ones were any better. I particularly liked Asimov's comment to one story which includes a distinctly Freudian image on the lines that he could imagine future critics getting very excited about the hidden subtext of this, but actually he'd done it quite deliberately...
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 13:36 GMT Tom 7
Re: > If anyone wants to do an academic study of his work
When at school sciences chose me but I loved reading almost anything I could get my hands on and read the works the English A'level students had to study and I loved them while they largely hated them. At uni a friend of mine was doing a PhD in english and she'd never read any Sci-Fi and took a book of my collection of browning tattered paperbacks and read around 200 works without breathing - seems she'd never read for pleasure before!
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Thursday 31st August 2017 00:01 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: > If anyone wants to do an academic study of his work
"He had a point I think, there are a good number of authors (CS Lewis, Isaac Asimov for two) on record as stating that all the analyses of their work that they had seen were utterly wide of the mark. "
I vaguely remember a short SF story many, many years ago. It was a time travel thing in a university. Shakespear was pulled into the "present" and attended a course on his work and failed the test. It might even have been an Asimov work :-)
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Monday 4th September 2017 15:09 GMT The Packrat
Re: > If anyone wants to do an academic study of his work
I seem to recall a story (one of Asimov's I think) that involved a scientist bringing Shakespeare forward in time and letting him join an English Literature class so that he could see what people thought about his works so many centuries later. He wound up asking to be sent back to his own time because he was so demoralised and depressed after seeing the sorts of things that people got from his works as well as having flunked the course about himself... Story was told from the viewpoint of the scientist telling off his Lit professor friend for failing Shakespeare, and said Lit professor vaguely recalling a funny speaking individual from his class...
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 12:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
*sigh*
No, I didn't. They're about 2 quid on eBay. Or 4 quid by the time you order a second, as the first arrived faulty but not worth the cost to return it.
It was a joke.. IDE drives are, you know, old?
But well done on your Googling skills there. Obviously better than my joke telling skills.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 21:34 GMT Martin-73
@ AC's sigh
I got the joke, wondered at the downvotes, then realized you'd posted AC... hence no joke icon... so no way for the pedantic masses to notice.
I shudder to think the fact i recognized it maybe means i am underqualified?
*kicks IDE / USB 2.0 enclosure under desk... and damages antique 10GB hdd*
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 14:01 GMT Vinyl-Junkie
IDE drives
I have all my old IDE drives (at least those of 80Gb or more) and a couple of IDE external caddies. I use the old drives as removable backup.
I would imagine that if this drive contained actual PTerry writings (as opposed to being a purely symbolic gesture), they were the last external backups of his work, everything else already having been wiped.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 18:25 GMT Mage
Re: IDE drives
It was only last month I dumped a load of MFM drives, controllers and mobos at the recycling centre. I have an actual IBM AT (though with VGA card and AST memory expansion) in the attic. It might still have MFM. I also dumped old "IDE" drives that used same parallel cable but not the regular IDE/PATA port. Also three kinds of SCSI drives.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 16:32 GMT 40k slimez
I think you'll find it was a Parallel ATA (PATA) drive - IDE being what PATA drives developed from.
The terms "integrated drive electronics" (IDE), "enhanced IDE" and "EIDE" have come to be used interchangeably with ATA (now Parallel ATA, or PATA)... but's not let facts get in the way of a good joke........ it was a good joke wasn't it??
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 23:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
Well, it was.
A geek would've chuckled and felt all smug. Knowing nicely they'd have an old box in the loft that'd have requistite connector. Or knowing they could achieve readability with a scratty Chinese adapter they picked up which may or may not function that day.
Then you come along. Geek times ten, and waffle on with a load of cack even normal geeks forgot about years ago.
Got any info on CONFIG.SYS settings for SoundBlasters, or POKE's for the old Commodore 64 while you're on? If you have, don't bother posting back, I'll be ginned up in about 15 minutes and am hardly likely to enjoy it.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 16:39 GMT Robert Carnegie
Similar joke
I think it was "Son of Cliché" on radio - written by the Red Dwarf authors and including prototypes of Dwarf, and currently repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra (as is Sir Terry, indefinitely) - that presented a spoof feature on the truth about Marilyn Monroe, including someone who provided a (fake, using her music tracks) revelatory recording of Marilyn; he said, well, no one had asked him about it, and anyway it was on 8 Track tape cartridge and who has those any more...
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 11:26 GMT Alan J. Wylie
"steamroller named"
I think there's something missing there: steamroller named Lord Jericho
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 13:19 GMT Ochib
re:Terry Pratchett's unfinished works flattened by steamroller
After his death, fellow fantasy author Neil Gaiman, Pratchett’s close friend and collaborator , told the Times that Pratchett had wanted “whatever he was working on at the time of his death to be taken out along with his computers, to be put in the middle of a road and for a steamroller to steamroll over them all”.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 14:16 GMT kmac499
Re: Please
OK then. What would such an icon signify?
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The absurdity of us human beings trying to make their mark against the flowing stream of uncaring, unstoppable chaos that is the clockwork of the universe slowly running down.
I suggest a pointy hat as "Embuggerance" is just too big to fit in the icon Box..
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 12:06 GMT Notenoughnamespace
The Salmon of Doubt
In two minds about this:
Stuff found on the hard drive of the late Douglas Adams was compiled in to a book. Much of little value, but I enjoyed reading the first chapters of a new Dirk Gently novel. Franz Kafka wanted his work destroyed, and (according to Quartz Media) we only have The Metamorphosis because his wishes were ignored. It does seem weird to let the dead decide on the best course of action for those of us left behind.
We're going to face this more often, and should be thinking about our own digital detritus as well of that belonging to the rich and famous.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 12:38 GMT Alister
Re: The Salmon of Doubt
It does seem weird to let the dead decide on the best course of action for those of us left behind.
Not when it's their works, and their legacy, it's not.
Would you ignore the wishes of your parents on how they are buried / cremated etc after they are gone?
Both Rob Wilkins and Rhianna have pledged that there will never be a continuation of Discworld, in accordance with Terry's wishes, and that's as it should be.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 14:21 GMT Tom 38
Re: The Salmon of Doubt
Would you ignore the wishes of your parents on how they are buried / cremated etc after they are gone?
Maybe. Depends on what those wishes were. As it happens, as you say, after they are gone, their wishes don't really come in to it that much because there is no "them" anymore.
This actually has legal precedence, if the wishes of the deceased affect the living unduly, the executor can set them aside. Eg, you might want to be buried at sea in a burning Viking ship, but your executor may as easily decide to bury you in the local cemetery to save money.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 12:55 GMT Alister
Re: When there's no more magic left it's time to stop.
What a curious attitude. Would you rather he hadn't published Raising Steam, then?
In case you missed it, he was ill, and becoming progressively worse, at the time that he wrote that, and yes, it does appear more laboured than some of his earlier works, but I would still rather be able to read it, than not.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 13:57 GMT Kevin Johnston
Re: When there's no more magic left it's time to stop.
I suspect the extra time to read is because they are so different. It was easy to settle into the previous discworld books because they had a simple rhythm to them but Raising Steam went out on it's own rails scattering previous assumptions like confetti while Dodger was differently different as it was not Discworld. Even Carpet People and the Bromiliad at least had Gnomish characters and so were in a similar vein.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 14:13 GMT Vinyl-Junkie
Re: When there's no more magic left it's time to stop.
Raising Steam is one of my favourites; I think it's easily one of his best. Just because the social parody is more pronounced and the one-liners less prevalent doesn't make it more laboured or any less of a book.
In later years Sir PTerry became more and more angry about social injustice and inequality, capitalism and the rape of former nationalised industries for profit. This was evident to anyone who met him at a signing or convention. This anger translated into his work; he used the Discworld to hold up a mirror to our own so we could see the absurdity of the theories that underpin the modern banking system (Making Money), the idiocy of privatised public services (the clacks in Going Postal), and the stupidity of religious and racial intolerance (Thud & Snuff).
Raising Steam was both a chance to bring the railway revolution to the Discworld (something he'd been wanting to do for years) and to take a satirical look at fundamentalism. As far as I'm concerned he did both with considerable panache.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 17:49 GMT The New Turtle
Re: When there's no more magic left it's time to stop.
To me, if that's the case then he sold his discworld legacy cheaply to make a political point, although his books had been increasingly formulaic (disaster looms, hero/ine has some special ability, they or nearby character falls in love, tension peaks, everything is OK in the end). Not that I didn't enjoy them, but as western tech was increasingly used to prop up stories so they became decreasingly interesting.
I read quite a bit of his output, including the truckers series, dark side of the sun and the carpet people. Each had their own flavour and each bore his style. Perhaps discworld became his vehicle for protest because he thought he'd affect more people that way, and was too far gone to create a new world instead.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 11:43 GMT Alister
Re: When there's no more magic left it's time to stop.
@SteveastroUk
Except GP was about the THEFT of a private company from its owners - like Nationalisation.
@Aladdin Sane
Not quite. The closest comparison would be an argument against aggressive venture capitalism and asset stripping that happens to a lot of tech start ups.
It's curious how one can project one's own preconceptions onto Terry's writings.
As a Brit, I thought that GP was very much a parody of what happens when previously nationalised industries / services become prey to the pursuit of profits by private ownership, as happened / is happening to the Post Office, BT, the Railways, the NHS etc, etc in Britain.
It is not an exact analogy, of course, as the clacks was originally owned and run by the Deerhearts, but it was definitely run in the style of the old Nationalised GPO / Post Office Telephones.
As someone who worked for British Telecom just after privatisation, and then later in the NHS, there are a lot of things in GP that resonate with my experiences.
The removal of resources, the cessation of regular maintenance, and the reduction in quality of service but for higher prices, all remind me very much of what happened when the GPO became BT.
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 15:34 GMT B*stardTintedGlasses
This kind of thing is why the man was one of the greats. A sense of humour that manages to shine through even the finality at the end of the ride.
A salute to you Sir P'Terry, for every smile in my childhood, every moment of escapism in my teens, and every "suddenly clear" joke hidden in layers of meaning that I understood on re-reading as an Adult.
Excuse me... suddenly very dusty in here.
***
AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER...
Terry took Death’s arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.
***
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 16:53 GMT Boris the Cockroach
My favourite Pterry quote is
from Guards Guards, where the said guards arrest a man whos just seen a dragon burn all his not so evil associates to death
"Cant we do something for the poor man" Said Lady Ramkin, as he stood there shivering with fear
"I can kick him in the bollocks" replied Nobby
One from the 'SPG' style of policing ....
Best book
"Small gods"
Burn me over an iron turtle if that is'nt true
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Wednesday 30th August 2017 19:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
OOK!
The Great A'Tuin finally reached its destination and Discworld ceased to exist. As it was destined. As it should. Without the Library of books yet to be written or the Librarian to find them, we can now only see into its past. And it remains wonderful.
In this day and age I recommend that, if you read no other work, read Jingo - not his best but supremely relevant. But don't just do that. Read them all, even the non-Discworld works.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 11:49 GMT MJI
What a way to do it.
I liked the idea, the fun, the way of doing it.
Read most of his books, (75% to 80%), still need to read a few to complete the set, (missed a few in the middle).
But I did notice a style change on the last few though, Raising Steam felt like it was cowritten.
The Shepherds Crown was a great finish to his series, very poignant.
Not sure where I saw the film though, the one with David Jason, as I never had Sky. But he seemed too old to be RIncewind.
But better no more books than half written and badly finished books.
The only thing I would have wanted would be if the characters were ones we knew, would they have been OK.
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Thursday 31st August 2017 14:05 GMT Sherrie Ludwig
On the topic of unfinished novels
Only occasionally, the executors of an estate find the right collaborator to finish an author's work in progress, and only when they are reasonably certain of a good outcome should they proceed. One of my other favorite authors, Dorothy L. Sayers, had an unfinished Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane novel that took half a century to find its collaborator in Jill Paton Walsh. The novel lacks some of the classical scholarship of Sayers, but the characters are given the chance to breathe one more time (with a nice afterword as to all their fates during and after WWII). A worthy addition to that series, Thrones, Dominations.
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Sunday 3rd September 2017 04:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
There is only ONE
Highlandrive..
(sorry, wrong series)
But seriously, how do I ensure that my unpublished GUT that essentially demolishes the Standard Model and unifies GR, QM AND DM remains unknown, in the event of unfortunate circumstances?
Can I just will that all my drives be destroyed in some creative way?
Wouldn't want to put 96% of the physics community out of work!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
