as small as a world and as large as alone, annalandin:The world is one bright soul poorer...

4:36pm March 14, 2015

annalandin:The world is one bright soul poorer today. Yesterday, March 12th, Sir Terry Pratchett died. I usually don’t get too emotional over the deaths of famous people, but I’m a bit of a wreck over this one. I have been reading the works of Terry Pratchett since I found Interesting Times on a shelf at the back of my local bookstore when I was fourteen. My bookshelf groans under the weight of all the Discworld novels, Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook, Where’s My Cow and the Mappes of Discworld and Mrs Bradshaw’s Handbook for the Ankh-Morpork Hygenic Railway. What I’ve lost now is not just the source of great books and entertainment; it feels almost like I’ve lost a distant grandfather. So this is for him. Thank you, Mr Pratchett, for a flat world on the backs of four elephants, travelling through space on the back of a turtle - a world that was somehow more than the sum of its parts. Thank you for incomptetent, potato-obsessed wizzards. Thank you for sentient pear-wood and many-legged Luggages. Thank you for unwilling rightful heirs, for burping swamp dragons, for vicious elves and feet of clay. Thank you for hot-headed dwarfs, for troll-gangsters, for moving pictures and Music With Rocks In. Thank you for witches. Thank you for Magrat Garlick, for Agnes Nitt of the fabulous hair and great personality; for Tiffany Aching and her frying pan and fierce will to save herself; for Nanny Ogg. For Granny Weatherwax. Thank you for the Night Watch, for Vetinari, for Rufus Drumknott; for the Truth that Shall Make Me Frep - for Dibbler and Harga’s House of Ribs, for secret brotherhoods and snooty Assassins and thieves and ladies of negotiable affection; thank you for Vimes. Thank you for Angua, for Sergeant Colon, for Nobby Nobbs, for Carrot and Rob and A.E Pessimal. Thank you for Ankh-Morpork. Thank you for cross-dressing soldiers. Thank you for Small Gods. Thank you for Anoia, Goddess of Things That Stick In Drawers. Thank you for printing presses, railways, postage stamps, clacks-towers and Royal Mints. Thank you for golems. Thank you for Anghammarad. Thank you for the Silver Horde. Thank you for Cohen the Babarian, for Old Vincent, for Boy Willie, Mad Hamish and Truckle the Uncivil. Thank you for Binky, for Mort and Ysabell and Albert and for Susan Sto Helit. Thank you for the fierce humanity of your writing. Thank you for hiding a voice of social awareness, of reason and compassion beneath the layers of loving parody. Thank you for Vimes’ Boots Theory of Socio-Economics. Thank you. Morituri Nolumus Mori, but some of us do all the same. I may sometimes wonder if what I do - the stories I try to tell - are worth it; if there’s any point at all, when there are so many other important things one can do - but then I find myself sitting here crying over a man I have never met, and now never will, simply for the stories he has given me. Words matter, as do the stories they tell.

The world is one bright soul poorer today. Yesterday, March 12th, Sir Terry Pratchett died.

I usually don’t get too emotional over the deaths of famous people, but I’m a bit of a wreck over this one. I have been reading the works of Terry Pratchett since I found Interesting Times on a shelf at the back of my local bookstore when I was fourteen. My bookshelf groans under the weight of all the Discworld novels, Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook, Where’s My Cow and the Mappes of Discworld and Mrs Bradshaw’s Handbook for the Ankh-Morpork Hygenic Railway. What I’ve lost now is not just the source of great books and entertainment; it feels almost like I’ve lost a distant grandfather.

So this is for him.

Thank you, Mr Pratchett, for a flat world on the backs of four elephants, travelling through space on the back of a turtle - a world that was somehow more than the sum of its parts.

Thank you for incomptetent, potato-obsessed wizzards. Thank you for sentient pear-wood and many-legged Luggages. Thank you for unwilling rightful heirs, for burping swamp dragons, for vicious elves and feet of clay. Thank you for hot-headed dwarfs, for troll-gangsters, for moving pictures and Music With Rocks In.

Thank you for witches. Thank you for Magrat Garlick, for Agnes Nitt of the fabulous hair and great personality; for Tiffany Aching and her frying pan and fierce will to save herself; for Nanny Ogg. For Granny Weatherwax.

Thank you for the Night Watch, for Vetinari, for Rufus Drumknott; for the Truth that Shall Make Me Frep - for Dibbler and Harga’s House of Ribs, for secret brotherhoods and snooty Assassins and thieves and ladies of negotiable affection; thank you for Vimes. Thank you for Angua, for Sergeant Colon, for Nobby Nobbs, for Carrot and Rob and A.E Pessimal. Thank you for Ankh-Morpork.

Thank you for cross-dressing soldiers. Thank you for Small Gods. Thank you for Anoia, Goddess of Things That Stick In Drawers. Thank you for printing presses, railways, postage stamps, clacks-towers and Royal Mints. Thank you for golems. Thank you for Anghammarad.

Thank you for the Silver Horde. Thank you for Cohen the Babarian, for Old Vincent, for Boy Willie, Mad Hamish and Truckle the Uncivil. Thank you for Binky, for Mort and Ysabell and Albert and for Susan Sto Helit.

Thank you for the fierce humanity of your writing. Thank you for hiding a voice of social awareness, of reason and compassion beneath the layers of loving parody. Thank you for Vimes’ Boots Theory of Socio-Economics.

Thank you. Morituri Nolumus Mori, but some of us do all the same.

I may sometimes wonder if what I do - the stories I try to tell - are worth it; if there’s any point at all, when there are so many other important things one can do - but then I find myself sitting here crying over a man I have never met, and now never will, simply for the stories he has given me.

Words matter, as do the stories they tell.