Sir Terry Pratchett passes away

[hugobomb]

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31858156

Awful news, one of my favourite authors and an all round great person.

[Marcos]

Such sad news. Easily one of my favourite authors over the last decade.

[Kaney]

My favourite author all round, easily. I'll need to dig out some discworld books

[Matt]

Sad news but for some reason I thought this happened a couple of years back, so in a weird way I'm a little bit happy that he lived longer than I thought.

[GoGo Yubari]

I still remember getting into Discworld at the end of high school. I'd read The Color of Magic on a whim one summer, and after saying I'd liked it to a friend of mine he literally gave me his entire collection, missing only a handful of books. I basically spent around three years or so almost exclusively reading those books, unless I had something I needed to read for college purposes. I'd go on walks and read Discworld, I'd take the bus places and read Discworld, I'd go to dinner and sit there and read Discworld. I'll miss his writing dearly but I'm thankful that he was able to write so much of it in the first place.

My favorite excerpt:

Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, re-created anew. Therefore, he understood there is, in truth, no Past, only a memory of the Past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.

[gunnar hendershow]

I think my dad has read all of Discworld, or at least 90% of it. So very sad. I haven't dove into Discworld, it's something I want to do one day and maybe this will serve as that much-needed push.

[Lineker]

Really sad. That said though, he had Alzheimers so I am glad that he's no longer suffering.

[Skummy]

Discworld saw me through childhood. Pratchett's writing informed my tastes, my opinions and my sense of humour more than probably any other writer. When I was ten years old, I met him at a book signing - I was shy, nervous and scared, and he spoke to me as if I were the most important person in the room. He signed my book, "In your heart you know it's real", and I've hung on to that battered, dog-eared paperback ever since, and that phrase has rarely been far from my mind. I'm genuinely holding back tears at this.

[Rainiac]

This has completely bummed me out: Sir Terry Pratchett was probably my favourite author ever. He had such a brilliant & creative mind, so the fact that he was suffering from a disease that slowly robbed him of the ability to think coherently is the cruellest of all ironies. I starting reading the Discworld series about 12 years ago & was blown away by the sheer inventiveness of what I read. It's not a stretch to call him one of my idols, really. I'm happy he's no longer suffering but that can't erase the sadness that I feel from the loss of one of the all-time great fantasy writers. I've said this already over on Twitter but I'll say it again: the world became a lot darker today

[Lineker]

AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.

— Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob)

March 12, 2015

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

— Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob)

March 12, 2015

The End.

— Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob)

March 12, 2015

[Rainiac]

His daughter Rhianna (who writes video game scripts, which I only found out today of all days) tweeted the exact same thing. All of the feels

[Colly]

She used to write for PC Zone too. I miss PC Zone.

I haven't picked up one of his books in a while, now I need to make sure I've completed the collection in time for my daughter to 'randomly' discover them in ten years time. Like a few above they massively filled up my reading time at school and college, and I still keep going back to them. The game was pretty good too. And the tv versions Sky did.

[Rainiac]

Make no mistake, as soon as I'm able to afford it, I'm buying every single discworld novel I don't yet own. I was planning to do that anyway before today's events happening, but now I feel like I owe it to the man's memory to truly appreciate his legacy

[lanky316]

Wrote the recent Tomb Raider games didn't she? Doing well for herself at the moment.

I'm really shaken up over this one, one of those celebrity deaths that really hits hard. Had the pleasure to meet him and he signed the poster and my script from when I performed The Fifth Elephant and seemed genuinely pleased to see everyone who had turned out at his signing. Sadly not sure where they are now, certain that the poster went missing with most of the companies archive stuff when the guy who was redesigning the website dissapeared but it's the only script I have I can't find anymore. Due on stage in a couple of hours, amusingly it's a recreation of a witch trial and one of the accused was called Agnes - nicknamed Perditax by the cast of course - and really shaken up. Those tweets cut right through me whenever I think of them.

Was about time for one of my regular full series rereads anyway...

[MDK]

Ook

i have most of the Discworld books at home and I was just about to start re-reading them again. I fell in love with the books after reading Guards! Guards! after a friend game me the book. From then I loved Vimes, by far my favourite character.

Bugger.

[Colly]

Men at Arms was my first, so I've got a massive soft spot for the Watch too.

[TEOL]

Horrible news. I remember finding the Discworld books in the library when I was about ten and getting completely absorbed in them. In fact, before I ever found EWB, my main site online was a Discworld fan forum.

I've got a picture of me with him somewhere. I was wearing his hat.

[Liam]

Never my most favourite author, but I have enjoyed a few of his books and particularly enjoyed his euthanasia documentary - it's a resource I've used several times in my teaching career.

RIP indeed.

[METALMAN]

I read a Terry Pratchett book when I was very young. I liked it. So I read another. I didn't like that one so much,

And I never read anything he did since.

However, his campaigning work inspiring and the sense of humour that he maintained was very brave. I never really read much of him but it's a very sad loss. I always liked him.

And I might actually make a point of properly reading one of his books that isn't The Amazing Maurice. Although I loved that and read it cover to cover several times when I was a kid. I might actually just read that again!

I remember Skummy previously wrote about how much Terry Pratchett meant to him. It's really nice, that sort of thing.

[MDK]

I remember reading Only You Can Save Mankind when I was in primary school, I think. It put me off video games for a while when I was a nipper.