the-last-punbender:

goddamnshinyrock:

in Men at Arms, Vimes takes a moment to wonder how many watchmen have had his badge before him, and who will have it after, and the idea of Sam Vimes dying hit me like a sledgehammer (again) and god I bet they retire the badge number after he finally dies. no one else can be #177. fucking hell.

Imagine Carrot slipping the badge into Vimes’ coffin. It’s not technically a dwarf burial, because badge 177 isn’t technically a weapon.

But it should be plenty for Commander Sam Vimes, in case he encounters…anything.

hedgehog-o-brien:

I’ve been on a Discworld re-read for about a year now, and it just struck me how Pterry gets progressively angrier and less subtle about it throughout the series.

Like, we start out nice and easy with Rincewind who’s on some wacky adventures and ha ha ha oh golly that Twoflower sure is silly and the Luggage is epic, where can I get one. Meanwhile Rincewind just wants to live out his boring days as a boring Librarian but is dragged along against his will by an annoying little tourist guy and honestly? Fuck this.

We get the first view of Sam Vimes, and he’s just a drunken beaten down sod who wants to spend his last days as a copper in some dive but oh fuck now he has to fight a dragon and honestly? Fuck this.

The first time we see Granny Weatherwax, she’s just a cranky old woman who has never set foot outside her village but oh fuck now she has to guide this weird girl who should be a witch but is apparently a wizard all the way down to Ankh Morpork and honestly? Fuck this.

Like, these books deal with grumpy, cranky people. But mostly, the early books are a lot of fun. Sure, they have messages about good and evil and the weirdness of the world, and they’re good messages too, but mostly they are just wacky romps through a world that’s just different enough that we can have a good laugh about it without taking things too much to heart.

But then you get to Small Gods, in which organized religion is eviscerated so thorouhgly that if it was human, even the Quisition would say it’s gone a bit too far while at the same time not condemning people having faith which is kind of an important distinction.

You get to Men at Arms and I encourage everybody with an opinion on the Second Amendment to read that one.

You get to Jingo, Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal (featuring an evil CEO who is squeezing his own company dry to get to every last penny, not caring one lick about his product or his workers or his customers or anything else and who, coincidentally, works out of Tump Tower. I’m not making this up).

And just when you think, whew, this is getting a bit much but hey, look, he wrote YA as well! And it’s about this cute little girl who wants to be a witch and has help from a lot of rowdy blue little men, this will be fun! A bit of a break from all the anger!

Wrong.

The Tiffany Aching books are the angriest of all. But you know what the great thing is?

The great thing is that Pterry’s anger is the kind of fury that makes you want to get up and do something about it. It upsets you, sure. But it also says It’s up to you to change all of this. And you can change all of this, and even if you can’t. Do it anyway. Because magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.

It’s the kind of anger that gives you purpose, and it gives you hope. And that concludes my essay about why the Discworld series is so gloriously cathartic to read when it seems like all the world is going to shit.

So go. Read them, get angry and then get up and fight. Fight for truth. Justice. Freedom. Reasonably priced love and, most importantly, a hard-boiled egg.

GNU Terry Pratchett.

shibara:

Good luck on the other side of things. Your sand was magic.

I wish he could have stayed a while longer.

random-nexus:

petermorwood:

twin-city-ankh-and-morpork:

Sir Terry Pratchett, 28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015

“DON’T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.”

Art by Paul Kidby

I don’t feel like laughing, not even smiling – but I’m doing both.

(Paul, thank you for helping me do it…)

(Such f’ing awesome art! ^5 to you Paul Kidby)

RIP, Sir Terry, I don’t know what your concept of heaven was, but I hope you’re enjoying it. My money’s on a world-tour starting in Ankh-Moorpork, with Luggage.

We’ve lost another huge chunk of awesome, although maybe it’s a wash, because Sir Terry Pratchett created so very much awesome while he was here.

Terry Pratchett dies at 66 after long battle with Alzheimer’s disease

madeofpersonal:

He sold over 85million books worldwide in 37 languages, and in 2011 announced his diagnosis with posterior cortical atrophy, a rare variant of Alzheimer’s disease primarily affecting vision.

I can’t stop crying. Sir Terry, you were my hero. You’re my inspiration to be a writer, and the Discworld series were the first books I ever fell in love with. This is devastating.

madnessandsadness:

Oh.

Terry Pratchett has died. The world is darker for the loss, but he has finally found his rest.

May the worlds you created be your refuge, and the joy you have given us cradle your slumber.

cityoflondonlibraries:

Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.- Terry Pratchett

ne-sy:

some fanart based on Terry Pratchett’s “Going postal” , “Witches abroad” and ”Lords and Ladies”

love his books

A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.

Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett (via them-witches)

neil-gaiman:

londongypsy:

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett join forces with Radio 4 to make first ever dramatisation of Good Omens

The Radio 4 audience loved Neverwhere and Good Omens will be a splendid Christmas treat.Gwyneth Williams, Controller, BBC Radio 4

Date: 05.09.2014 Last updated: 05.09.2014 at 11.03

Category: Radio 4

It’s the end of the world – just not quite how we might be expecting it – but then this is Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s version of Armageddon.

BBC Radio 4 has today confirmed that the station will be collaborating with acclaimed authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett to create the first ever dramatisation of their co-penned cult-classic, Good Omens.

The audio drama, which begins recording today in a secret London location, has a cast including Colin Morgan (Merlin, The Fall) as Newton Pulsifer, Josie Lawrence (Skins, EastEnders) as Agnes Nutter and Paterson Joseph (Peep Show, Green Wing) as Famine, as well as a host of delightful cameos, from the Gardeners’ Question Time team to Neil and Terry themselves. Other cameos are set to delight listeners, but they are under wraps for now. Probably in a dusty occult bookshop in Covent Garden, but no one is quite sure.

Mark Heap (Spaced, Green Wing, Stardust) and Peter Serafinowicz (Guardians Of The Galaxy, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Shaun Of The Dead) will be taking the central roles as angel and demon, Aziraphale and Crowley, respectively. The star-studded cast will also include Clive Russell (Game Of Thrones, Ripper Street), Julia Deakin (Spaced, Hot Fuzz), Louise Brealey (Sherlock), Simon Jones (Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy), Arsher Ali (Four Lions, Complicit, Beaver Falls), Phil Davis (Silk, Whitechapel, Being Human) and Mark Benton (Waterloo Road, Land Girls) to name but a few.

According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday in fact. Just after Any Answers on Radio 4.

Events have been set in motion to bring about the End of Days. The armies of Good and Evil are gathering and making their way towards the sleepy English village of Lower Tadfield. Atlantis is rising, fish are falling from the sky, the Four Horsepersons are assembling; everything seems to be going to the Divine Plan.

Everything that is, but for the unlikely duo of an angel and a demon who are not all that keen on the prospect of the forthcoming Rapture. In fact the prospect of Armageddon is all really rather inconvenient for them actually. But if they are to stop it taking place they’ve got to find and kill the one who will bring about the Apocalypse: the Antichrist himself. There’s just one small problem: someone seems to have mislaid him.

Released in 1990 and listed among the BBC’s Big Read Nation’s 100 favourite books, incredibly Good Omens has never been dramatised – until now.

The team behind Radio 4 and 4 Extra’s Neverwhere – which received a phenomenal critical and audience response last year – has reunited for this special six-part dramatisation of Good Omens. With Dirk Maggs, best known for Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, once again back in the director’s and adaptor’s chair, joined by producer Heather Larmour and ably assisted by Neil Gaiman. Neverwhere starred James McAvoy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Natalie Dormer and Sir Christopher Lee, to name but a few of the illustrious cast.

Fans will have to wait excitedly to hear the final drama as it is currently scheduled to air in December. It will broadcast across a week in five half-hour episodes and culminate in an hour-long final apocalyptic showdown, on a Saturday, shortly before Woman’s Hour, should the world not actually end.

Gwyneth Williams, Controller, BBC Radio 4, says: “I’m delighted to have Neil Gaiman back on Radio 4 – and this time with Terry Pratchett. I can’t wait to hear what they will do with the Apocalypse. The Radio 4 audience loved Neverwhere and Good Omens will be a splendid Christmas treat.”

Listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top 10 living postmodern writers, Neil Gaiman (American Gods, Stardust, Anansi Boys, The Graveyard Book, the ‘Sandman’ comics) has a huge following, even guesting on an episode of The Simpsons. His episode of Doctor Who was one of the most highly anticipated of recent years and he has nearly two million followers on Twitter.

Sir Terry Pratchett is best known for his epic comic fantasy Discworld series. Since his first Discworld novel (The Colour of Magic) was published in 1983, he has written two books a year on average. His 2011 Discworld novel, Snuff, was at the time of its release, the third-fastest-selling hardback adult-audience novel since records began in the UK, selling 55,000 copies in the first three days.

(source)

Hope this clarifies things for the puzzled…