Terry Pratchett

He was my favourite author. He passed on yesterday from complications of his Alzheimer's. And I don't think I have ever been this choked up about the death of someone I didn't know personally before.

I feel sad when celebrities die, because they provided me with entertainment.

But I think the loss of an author, especially one who wrote the sheer volume of novels that Pratchett did, is hitting me harder because, well, you know an author. Not, obviously, the way you know a friend. But everything you read that they wrote is coming from them. From their brain. It is a part of them.

And he was just a good person. Neil Gaiman (with whom he wrote "Good Omens") wrote of Pratchett, "He isn't jolly. He's angry."

Angry that the world isn't fair, because it should be.

And that worldview is what is lurking in the background of every novel he writes. Sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, often insightful, and always with some of the most real fictional characters I have ever read, in spite of them living on a flat world on the backs of four elephants perched on the shell of a giant space turtle.

They say not to start at the beginning of the Discworld series, and I agree. I appreciate the first books, but not as much as I do the latter ones.

I don't know what I would recommend first. I think it would depend on who was asking. I really enjoy "Witches Abroad," which is about fairy tales, and how stories can shape our reality (albeit much more literally in this book), and the witches are some of my favourite characters.

A lot of people seem to recommend "Mort," a novel about Death's apprentice. Because no one who reads Pratchett isn't a fan of Death.

A lot of people also recommend "Guards, Guards," a novel about a young, idealistic man dragging a dejected alcoholic kicking and screaming into listening to his own conscience (instead of drowning it in booze).

For me, the first thing I read that he had written was a short story in an anthology, and it featured Granny Weatherwax. The first novel of his that I read was "The Fifth Elephant," featuring the characters introduced in "Guards, Guards!"

I really don't think you can go wrong. But I would recommend, just for ease of timing, that you start at the beginning of each character arc. Which is "Mort" for Death, "Wyrd Sisters" for the witches (although technically Granny Weatherwax is in "Equal Rites," she does not come into her own until "Wyrd Sisters," which is, well, Macbeth and Hamlet and overturning tropes), "Guards, Guards!" for the Night Watch and Commander Vimes, and the wizards and Rincewind, while amusing, should be read after you have a feel for the world because they start the very beginning of Discworld.

But basically, you should read him, because he was an amazing author, and I cried a little while writing this because I can't believe he's gone, and that the amazing world he created will continue on only in our (lame as this sounds) hearts.