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Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
Duki
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This is some awfully sad news.
I'm glad he's keeping optimistic about it, and am more than glad for him that it was discovered relatively early giving him time to sort out his estate and what not. I've heard from more than a few people that having the time to mentally prepare for the side effects of the disease goes a long way to help in coping with it. Also mildly comforting is that he says that he will still write a few books, which is nice.
Ultimately though, this is sad, sad news and he's even relatively young too (59)
Basically just wanted to put the news out there, since I know quite a few fans of his go on these boards, but I guess we can just make this into a general Discworld thread since we haven't had one in ages, although talking about Discworld seems kind of hollow now.
Anyway, basically...
AN EMBUGGERANCE
Folks,
I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer's, which lay behind this year's phantom "stroke".
We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism. For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. All other things being equal, I
expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers. Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there's time for at least a few more books yet)
Terry Pratchett
PS I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should
be interpreted as 'I am not dead'. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as
will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think - it's too soon to tell.
I know it's a very human thing to say "Is there anything I can do", but in this case I
would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.
I'm glad he's keeping optimistic about it, and am more than glad for him that it was discovered relatively early giving him time to sort out his estate and what not. I've heard from more than a few people that having the time to mentally prepare for the side effects of the disease goes a long way to help in coping with it. Also mildly comforting is that he says that he will still write a few books, which is nice.
Ultimately though, this is sad, sad news and he's even relatively young too (59)
Basically just wanted to put the news out there, since I know quite a few fans of his go on these boards, but I guess we can just make this into a general Discworld thread since we haven't had one in ages, although talking about Discworld seems kind of hollow now.
Anyway, basically...
Duki on
0
Posts
...fuck. Well, I've been looking forward to Nation for a while now so...at least I'll get that. And possibly the final Rincewind novel. Thats the only silver lining I can find.
I feel really bad for him.
Hm. I'd like a final book for a bunch of characters, really. It doesn't really have to be finalfinal, like they all die or something, since the idea behind Discworld was for it to sort of just carry on even when you stop reading (which sounds massively lame, but it's true, it's one of the most complete fictional worlds ever). Watch, Death, Wizards and Rincewind and the Witches. And, hell, Moist as well, which I think is still on track to be his next book.
But then again, no one should pressure him into writing anything really. With today's medicine though, and with all the money he has, he could potentially still live with a lot of his faculties for a while yet, a decade even.
I dunno. Maybe there's going to be a huge breakthrough in stem cell research or something
Damn it, I love these books far too much.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
I think I am going to cry.
Agree totally with the transformation stuff, it really is seeming like everything is moving to an ultimate goal (basically, industrialisation or something).
Wikipedia seems to list the next novel after Nation as I Shall Wear Midnight, the next Tiffany Aching novel. After that is Raising Taxes. No mention of Unseen Academicals. So who knows. I suppose the next Tiffany Aching one could act as a final book for both Tiffany (which it was always meant to be, as far as I could gather) as well as the actual witches... but that just makes me even more sad because dammit they deserve their own books.
Of course, all of this is up in the air now. This sucks sooooo much.
edit: Yeah, Alzheimer's can be a real cunt real fast, or it can be slow and relatively manageable. I'm just hoping and praying for the latter
Poor, poor Mr. Pratchett.
But who is Terry Pratchett?
Shogun Streams Vidya
Ah, I've been expecting you, do we have time for tea?
FOR YOU THERE IS NO MORE TEA, THE TIME FOR TEA IS PAST
Whiskey then?
LET'S GO
Author of the Discworld series.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld
Also, Good Omens. Basically one of the best and most popular humorists alive.
where do you guys recommend starting on the discworld series? this reminds me that i have a lot of (supposedly) damn fine reading to do.
i hear guards! guards! is a good starting point. i'm looking at the flowchart for the series right now.
most of all, most of all
someone said true love was dead
but i'm bound to fall
bound to fall for you
oh what can i do
Wow lot of books. I have never heard of Discworld however I will put some of these on the Christmas list and check them out.
Shogun Streams Vidya
Small Gods. Standalone and excellent. Mort and Guards Guards are also good starting spots. The first three books are... not the best... to put it mildly.
Completely right.
And if Irond Will ever tries talking to you about Discworld just put your hands over your ears and maybe the bad man will go away.
*stealthily reaches for banhammer*
we don't lahk yer type here, son
but yeah, well worth a read. Maybe best to start with Small Gods or Guards! Guards! rather than his earliest stuff though, it took him a few books to settle in to form.
Personally, I've always loved the Witches books, particularly the Fairy Godmother book where they go to Genua. There's something absolutely lovely about the way Granny Weatherwax goes through life terrifying everyone and everything she meets.
Yeah, that's my favourite Witch book too.
And I dunno about Colour of Magic: it's tone is pretty much straight parody the whole way through. A lot of it depends on how familiar you are with cliches in the fantasy genre, especially in the shlocky boom it underwent in the 1980s. It is very funny though, or was when I first read it, but it's simplistic and not as good as his later books.
It is still worth reading though. Which is a bonus point for reading it first, as alter you might be scared away by it because it's so different. Up to you, really.
Edit: Oh, doing some author research, i have discovered that one author i thought had dissappeared off the face of the earth, Isobelle Carmody(sp?), is releasing a book early feb. So there is joy in my readingscape, but a terrible sadness too....
Clarification: While great stories in their own right, the first two books aren't the same thing as the rest of the series. They won't really set you up for the Disc like a later Watch or Witches or the fuck Making Money came out and no one told me I will kill you all.
Read Making Money, the new Moist book. or read Going Postal if you haven't (some great Vetinari stuff in there).
And yeah, Making Money is out. Pretty dang good too, although certain feline member of the forum found it disappointing.
They are wrong do not listen to them.
How do they age at all? Their nothing but send ups of fantasy tropes.
also, well jumping the gun given how ridiculous her works of the last few years have been...
which has resulted in five books about humanoid unicorns saving the galaxy. I'm not even joking.
man, its one of the many reasons I'm glad of the public library system. I can read all sorts of horrible tripe and nobody will ever know.
except the internet...
So she's still a 10 year old girly girl writing fantasy?
PS - Dragons =/= Ponies!
He's right about the librarians. We judge you.
And if you use self-issue machines we just distrust you because we know the reason you're doing so is so we don't see what you're getting out.
It's terrible, but it's true.
Also, whenever an old lady returns or gets out around 20 "sexy" category Mills & Boom romance novels, I cringe and hope to God they're not wet when i handle them.
Damnit, the Dragon books were actually really cool. And a couple of other of her trilogies, although she completely loses the ability to write anything but a tale that will obviously end happily :P the unicorns were shit, though.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Seriously, fuck this. Pratchett is my favourite author, bar none. I got every book since The Last Continent in hardcover, every other in paperback. When I have my bouts of depression I carry a Discworld book around everywhere I go as extra anxiety medicine. Without him I would not have made it through High School or University, I would have cracked up completly.
I have to say that part of me is in the grief mode already, First trying to deny it to myself, then trying to bargaing that the OP is a Cockwad that will be banned for making false threads. But Life is never that fair and this is real isn't it?
Fuck, why do the good ones get taken out so early and the bad ones are allowed to keep churning out shit. First David Gemmel, Now Pratchett.
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK YOU ALZHEIMERS