Discworld creator and inspiration for a generation of writers and games developers, Sir Terry Pratchett, has passed away at home at the age of 66. His publishers released a short statement earlier today with the news.
Fittingly – and poignantly – his official Twitter account broke the news in the style of Discworld’s most staple character.
AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.
— Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob) March 12, 2015
The End.
— Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob) March 12, 2015
While many obituaries will be written about Pratchett which talk about his humour and influence on English writers, his fantastic and memorable characters, what I’ll remember best is how as a schoolkid in the 1980s, Pratchett’s early Discworld books celebrated librarians and Ponder Stibbonses for their nerdishness. They made it OK to be a geek long before the rise of the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Steve Jobs became a mainstream hero. To paraphrase: the satanists may have had the best records, but we had the best books.
Always ahead of his time, a tragedy he was taken before it, Pratchett suffered from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease for the last seven years.
[Image – CC 3.0 Luigi Novi]
