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Terry Pratchett's unfinished novels destroyed by steamroller

Fuchsdh

Member
For many creative people, the thought of first drafts and abandoned projects leaking out could be maddening.

Yep. I've got old projects that are in retrospect terrible. I'd much rather have the majority of my stuff wiped so someone can't try and pull some money-making ghostwritten book and foist it on my fans.
 

Pau

Member
I know it's silly but I just started crying at my desk at work. I haven't even started The Shepherd's Crown because I know I'm going to be an utter mess reading it.
 

daveo42

Banned
Love it. I actually wish more authors did this. Manuscripts are generally left unreleased for a reason.

That's disappointing. Just release what's left

I think if he had someone in mind to finish any unfinished works, sure. But more often than not, regardless of who comes in to finish up these works, they tend to be worse than most of the authors original works and they tend to lean more towards making money off the name and not respect for the author.
 
You could tell with the Science of Discworld books that another writer couldn't just take over. Discworld was insane brilliance fueled by a mind that loved literature.

Also, yes, The Shepherd's Crown will make you cry.
 

iammeiam

Member
I can respect this; I feel like some of the later books were a little weaker, but preserving his stories as his own still protects the series as a whole.

I still haven't been able to make myself read The Shepherd's Crown. I preordered it, I have it, but there's something about knowing that whenever I read it will be the last new Discworld thing ever that makes me keep waiting. I grew up with those books, and can still remember being all of 10 and a woman at a used bookstore handing me a copy of Wyrd Sisters and explaining that it was Very Funny. They may actually be the only series I enjoyed at that age that I never felt like I outgrew--even as an adult reading the Tiffany Aching stuff for the first time it never felt like pandering to kids.

Compare and contrast with, like, Xanth, which I think is the other fantasy series I started reading around then and which now seems like so much gross trash.
 
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