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Terry Pratchett's unfinished novels destroyed by steamroller

L

LordOfLore

Banned
Just like he wanted.

The unfinished books of Sir Terry Pratchett have been destroyed by a steamroller, following the late fantasy novelist’s wishes.

Pratchett’s hard drive was crushed by a vintage John Fowler & Co steamroller named Lord Jericho at the Great Dorset Steam Fair, ahead of the opening of a new exhibition about the author’s life and work.

Pratchett, famous for his colourful and satirical Discworld series, died in March 2015 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

After his death, fellow fantasy author Neil Gaiman, Pratchett’s close friend and collaborator , told the Times that Pratchett had wanted “whatever he was working on at the time of his death to be taken out along with his computers, to be put in the middle of a road and for a steamroller to steamroll over them all”.

On Friday, Rob Wilkins, who manages the Pratchett estate, tweeted from an official Twitter account that he was “about to fulfil my obligation to Terry” along with a picture of an intact computer hard drive – following up with a tweet that showed the hard drive in pieces.

The symbolism of the moment, which captured something of Pratchett’s unique sense of humour, was not lost on fans, who responded on Twitter with a wry melancholy, though some people expressed surprise that the author – who had previously discussed churning through computer hardware at a rapid rate – would have stored his unfinished work on an apparently older model of hard drive.

The hard drive will go on display as part of a major exhibition about the author’s life and work, Terry Pratchett: HisWorld, which opens at the Salisbury museum in September.

The author of over 70 novels, Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2007.

He became an advocate for assisted dying, giving a moving lecture on the subject, Shaking Hands With Death, in 2010, and presenting a documentary for the BBC called Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die.

He continued to write and publish, increasingly with the assistance of others, until his death in 2015. Two novels were published posthumously: The Long Utopia (a collaboration with Stephen Baxter) and The Shepherd’s Crown, the final Discworld novel.

The Salisbury museum exhibition will run from 16 September until 13 January 2018.
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M

massoluk

Banned
I'm on the look out for a trustworthy dude to do the same with my hard drives. Lots of.... sensitive materials there. National security stuffs... Right, national security
 
S

SpaceWolf

Banned
As a Pratchett fan, I honestly find this kind of upsetting, but I'm ultimately glad his final wishes got to be respected.
 
H

hidys

Member
massoluk said:
I'm on the look out for a trustworthy dude to do the same with my hard drives. Lots of.... sensitive materials there. National security stuffs... Right, national security
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National Security?

Well we'll need to turn these over to the CIA. They could be important in the fight against Terrorism.
 
S

shawnbuddy

Member
That's pretty great. One way to protect your legacy from the shambling zombies of posthumous books finished by others. Probably would have been nice if someone would have done this for Douglas Adams.
 
P

Protome

Member
That's fittingly hilarious. Still sad to think about him being dead though. His books are the reason I read at all.
 
I

It's Reyn Time!

Member
I wish we'd got a short epilogue for Discworld, just a few paragraphs telling us who ended up where. Particularly for Ankh Morpork - was Vetinari actually grooming Moist to run the city? Did Carrot ever get outed as the true King? We'll never know.

That said, I'm so glad his wishes were respected, and so literally too! Good on them.
 
V

Volimar

Member
So sad, but such a Pratchett thing to do. They should have had people doing the stick and bucket dance around the steamroller.


I miss you Terry.
 
S

SiegfriedFM

Member
It's Reyn Time! said:
I wish we'd got a short epilogue for Discworld, just a few paragraphs telling us who ended up where. Particularly for Ankh Morpork - was Vetinari actually grooming Moist to run the city? Did Carrot ever get outed as the true King? We'll never know.

That said, I'm so glad his wishes were respected, and so literally too! Good on them.
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We did get some amazing closure on the witches though. As for the rest, they lived happily ever after. The end.
 
V

VegiHam

Member
When I read the title I thought "oh no what a tragedy".

As it was loading, I thought "oh, wait, that sounds like something he'd write"

Now I'm laughing. Melancholic, but still. RIP Terry.
 
L

LordOfLore

Banned
shawnbuddy said:
That's pretty great. One way to protect your legacy from the shambling zombies of posthumous books finished by others. Probably would have been nice if someone would have done this for Douglas Adams.
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Yep. And of the stuff that's set to come out like the Good Omens show he trusted Gaiman to know what to do and not do.
 
V

Volimar

Member
PerfectFlaw said:
It'll be an interesting day on Gaf when George R. R. Martin does the same thing.
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Not even GAF

The driver of a steamroller was savagely beaten by a crowd of onlookers moments before he was to destroy the unfinished works of George R.R. Martin. When reached for comment, the police chief responded with "well yeah, you've got to expect that."
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K

KDR_11k

Member
SpaceWolf said:
As a Pratchett fan, I honestly find this kind of upsetting, but I'm ultimately glad his final wishes got to be respected.
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Read Salmon of Doubt (or better yet don't) and all sadness will be gone. Wouldn't want ghost writers to finish those. And as sad as it is to say, the disease didn't really help the quality of his later works anyway. But then again I liked the anarchic fantasy of his earlier works more than the strict real world parallelism in later ones.
 
W

waveuponwave

Member
Don't know how I feel about this

Franz Kafka instructed his friend to burn all his writing after his death. Instead the guy sorted and published them. Kafka died before he could finish any of his novels, so only the shorter stuff like the Metamorphosis would have survived... how you feel about that probably depends on how you feel about brutally depressing stories without any hope that you're forced to read in school ;)

On the other hand Terry Pratchett has written a ton of books. It must take ages to read all the Discworld novels. So it's kind of understandable he doesn't want any unfinished works to kind of taint the universe he's built
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
erica‏ @Perdita_X_Nitt Aug 25

Replying to @terryandrob @SalisburyMuseum @Wiltshire_flo

And the little hard drive looked into the Blue Screen of Death's eyes and heard, in a resonant, deep voice, "CTRL, ALT, DELETE."
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I laughed sadly.
 
D

Dougald

Member
A shame, but I don't think anyone else could do Discworld justice, so I'm happy enough that they won't be trying to cobble some notes and half-finished chapters into more material. I approve of the method too.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
It's Reyn Time! said:
I wish we'd got a short epilogue for Discworld, just a few paragraphs telling us who ended up where. Particularly for Ankh Morpork - was Vetinari actually grooming Moist to run the city? Did Carrot ever get outed as the true King? We'll never know.

That said, I'm so glad his wishes were respected, and so literally too! Good on them.
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This is effectively what Raising Steam is if you can read between the lines, though.

KDR_11k said:
Read Salmon of Doubt (or better yet don't) and all sadness will be gone. Wouldn't want ghost writers to finish those. And as sad as it is to say, the disease didn't really help the quality of his later works anyway. But then again I liked the anarchic fantasy of his earlier works more than the strict real world parallelism in later ones.
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People say this, but I'm not 100% convinced. Snuff isn't my favourite piece of his work, but I wouldn't say the actual quality of the writing has declined, it is just a less interesting story at core. The only two books where I feel you can see the writing unravel are Raising Steam and The Shepherd's Crown.
 
K

KDR_11k

Member
waveuponwave said:
Don't know how I feel about this

Franz Kafka instructed his friend to burn all his writing after his death. Instead the guy sorted and published them. Kafka died before he could finish any of his novels, so only the shorter stuff like the Metamorphosis would have survived... how you feel about that probably depends on how you feel about brutally depressing stories without any hope that you're forced to read in school ;)
Click to expand...

Kafka supposedly thought he was writing comedy.
 
M

Morat

Banned
Not just any steamroller either:

DIZnP_oXoAEFMML.jpg
 
S

Slacka

Member
It's Reyn Time! said:
I wish we'd got a short epilogue for Discworld, just a few paragraphs telling us who ended up where. Particularly for Ankh Morpork - was Vetinari actually grooming Moist to run the city? Did Carrot ever get outed as the true King? We'll never know.
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Absolutely agree with this. There were so many overarching stories that kept evolving with each book that it really is a shame we will never get closure on them. As well as the previously mentioned points I really would have also liked to know how Vimes' story ended and if his son followed in his footsteps.

That said though I am glad that his wishes have been respected.
 
H

Huw_Dawson

Member
Very Pratchett. We'll never live in a reality with zombie Discworld, hopefully.

I'd love for a book on Pratchett's notes and thoughts on the series and where arcs would have gone (as said above) but I cannot help but think that he avoided actual closure on a lot of his series deliberately. It's possible that there was no final plan for the Anhh-Morpork cast, for example.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Huw_Dawson said:
I'd love for a book on Pratchett's notes and thoughts on the series and where arcs would have gone (as said above) but I cannot help but think that he avoided actual closure on a lot of his series deliberately. It's possible that there was no final plan for the Anhh-Morpork cast, for example.
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I actually agree. The beauty of the characters in the Ankh-Morpork cast was that they actually did feel like characters, living their lives, and we had a window to that. There wasn't some grand overarching narrative, any more than you or I have a grand overarching narrative. There's just life, and what happens in it.
 
K

Kuros

Member
Slacka said:
Absolutely agree with this. There were so many overarching stories that kept evolving with each book that it really is a shame we will never get closure on them. As well as the previously mentioned points I really would have also liked to know how Vimes' story ended and if his son followed in his footsteps.

That said though I am glad that his wishes have been respected.
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The thing is though. This isn't like Wheel of Time where it was relatively simple to ape the style of Robert Jordan for Sanderson. Literally no one else could write a Discworld book.
 
J

Jintor

Member
shawnbuddy said:
That's pretty great. One way to protect your legacy from the shambling zombies of posthumous books finished by others. Probably would have been nice if someone would have done this for Douglas Adams.
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I mean I really liked salmon of doubt, but yeah
 
P

PillarEN

Member
On one hand, sure. On the other hand. If Franz Kafka had his wishes come true then... well I'm just saying it might have been worth preserving.
 
C

Cheerilee

Member
It's Reyn Time! said:
I wish we'd got a short epilogue for Discworld, just a few paragraphs telling us who ended up where. Particularly for Ankh Morpork - was Vetinari actually grooming Moist to run the city? Did Carrot ever get outed as the true King? We'll never know.

That said, I'm so glad his wishes were respected, and so literally too! Good on them.
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shaneo632 said:
Saw T2 yesterday so I just imagine Pratchett on his death-bed telling people, "Nobody must follow my work."
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One interpretation of The Shepherd's Crown (the final Discworld book) is that Terry Pratchett was saying that he wanted his daughter, Rhianna Pratchett, to pick up the torch of Discworld. It wouldn't be the same Discworld under her creatorship, it would be different, but in some ways better, and that is how things should be.

But Rhianna Pratchett seems to have very much declined that offer.
 
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