RIP Sir Terry Pratchett: Discworld author finally gets to meet DEATH

Sir Terry Pratchett, author of more than 70 books including the hugely popular Discworld series, has died at his home in the company of his family and cat. He was 66.

Terry took Death’s arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.

— Rhianna Pratchett (@rhipratchett) March 12, 2015

Sir Terry was born on 28 April, 1948, and started writing fiction when he was still a teenager. He wrote professionally as a newspaper reporter before becoming a public relations officer for the British nuclear power industry. In his evenings, he began writing the Discworld novels that would garner him so many fans.

He quit the day job in 1987 to go full time and has since written dozens of books for adults and children, almost entirely based on Discworld, a flat planet sitting on the back of four elephants who stand on a giant turtle swimming through space, as a backdrop.

"I was deeply saddened to learn that Sir Terry Pratchett has died. The world has lost one of its brightest, sharpest minds,” said Larry Finlay, the boss of Transworld Publishers, which sponsors the Terry Pratchett First Novel Award for unpublished science-fiction novels.

"In over 70 books, Terry enriched the planet like few before him. As all who read him know, Discworld was his vehicle to satirize this world: he did so brilliantly, with great skill, enormous humour and constant invention.”

In 2007, Sir Terry shocked fans with the announcement that he had Alzheimer’s disease, which he described as an “embuggerance,” and began to campaign for the cause of assisted dying. He continued to write however, finishing his final Discworld novel last summer.

Your humble hack had the good fortune to meet Sir Terry in 1989 when he was doing a university book tour, and he was utterly charming, staying late to sign books and then staying longer to get pleasantly hammered in the bar with some fans. We are all a little poorer today. ®

A full obit follows.