[AnimoEsto]

Terry Pratchett has just died aged 66 after a long battle with Alzheimers Disease.

The librarian and myself are really upset

Oook

[deeneendo]

sad, I love the Ringworld outtakes... on the other hand, suffering from Alzheimer's is probably one of the most horrible fates one can encounter, I'd go as far as saying that I'd prefer death, if I was affected.

EDIT: I meant Discworld, actually, although Ringworls by Niven is worth a read too...

[Vizique]

Was gutted to read the news of this just now.

Loved his books, played a great part in my view on the world too...

even to the point he influenced some of the stuff I wrote at the time... but the rave scene helped there too LOL

Well, Looks like anticipation mounted and rode off into that final sunset... it never was one to stick around when things got interesting....

[AnimoEsto]

Currently http://www.discworld.com is redirecting to http://127.0.0.1/ - aka home

[paulc010]

[ilidion]

already a thread on this. RIP

[BoB]

Today I am genuinely sad. His humour has been the source of many a belly lugh from me, and his level of insight into society, religion and people were always wildly under rated. Id hope he's remembered as the amazeing philosopher he clearly was, as well asone of the funniest men to ever put pen to paper.

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

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

“If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little ■■■■■■■■ they are. Style. That's what people remember.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent

RIP old man. I hope the Death of Rats showed up for your goodbye too.

[BoB]

A few more quotes:

“She was already learning that if you ignore the rules people will, half the time, quietly rewrite them so that they don't apply to you.”
― Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites

“Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“His philosophy was a mixture of three famous schools -- the Cynics, the Stoics and the Epicureans -- and summed up all three of them in his famous phrase, 'You can't trust any bugger further than you can throw him, and there's nothing you can do about it, so let's have a drink.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

“If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

“There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.”
― Terry Pratchett

“The entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.”
― Terry Pratchett

“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

“There isn't a way things should be. There's just what happens, and what we do.”
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“Nanny Ogg looked under her bed in case there was a man there. Well, you never knew your luck.”
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

“Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god's idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.”
― Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

“Just because you can explain it doesn't mean it's not still a miracle.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

“But is all this true?" said Brutha.
Didactylos shrugged. "Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork."
"You mean you don't KNOW it's true?" said Brutha.
"I THINK it might be," said Didactylos. "I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about.”
― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

If you've never read pratchett, just try it. But start at the beginning. See the man grow, his style develop and the wonderful world he created evolve

[ManeBjorn]

Oh this is terrible.
I hope he is at peace.
One of my favorite authors. I have my own library of nearly 1200 books now. I have most of his. Ringworld really was so much fun growing up.
I like to reread them even now.

[Vizique]

Ringworld was Larry Niven and damn fine books they are too, well worth a movie or 3 in their own right.
Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers and The Puppeteers. Haven't read 'em? Do so, you'll be richer for it, they're not huge tomes either...

Discworld however was always a wonderful idea
Check out some of the live action stuff that's been made as adaptations form the books like The Hogfather, Postal, The Colour of Magic and a few others, there's also a number of animated adaptations too, should be out there on the wires somewhere!

[deeneendo]

you're right, of course. I mixed up the two, Discworld is much better (well, funnier, actually) anyway.

[Vizique]

He wrote so many it's hard to have a favorite!

DEATH is a natural favorite for many as is Rincewind, the Luggage, well, who couldn't love luggage like that! Loyal to fault, even if your carrier loses it, it will return LOL

Ah too many characters worth a mention including Granny Weatherwax ... aye, Terry will be sadly missed

[deeneendo]

for some reason, I think my favourite would be "Strata" from 1981, since it had a bit of more sci-fi theme, while still being related more or less closely to the Discworld series (and much inspired by Niven´ s "Ringworld".

[AnimoEsto]

In respect of pterry - the headers of the cloud and gethashing.com have been modified to add in

header set X-Clacks-Overhead "GNU Terry Pratchett"

[aspa]

It keeps getting to me..
Nice gesture.