It really is. Redditors on /r/discworld are seeing to that.
Reading that again gave me shivers. His name is in the code.
Now I’m crying again, but this time I’m smiling as well.
I passed that link on to a programmer friend who has been in tears over his death, and she lit up.
Well, ___!
I learned how to swear just like that, because of him. And it’s funny as hell, because people fill in the blanks when in reality it’s just a full glottal stop.
Everything everyone has said applies to me.
There were tears.
Respect in Perpetuity. You were a one in a million.
Indeed.
Really? In Small Gods, the trouble was well under way because Omnia’s neighbours had decided to put an end to their nonsense once and for all, and it was Om himself showing up - plus the various interested gods whom he had persuaded that it was better to have more worshippers than fewer, and this was best served by stopping them from killing each other - that stopped a bloody war. I’m struggling to think of instances where a god turns up and causes trouble; perhaps you can jog my memory.
Of course the events of Interesting Times are largely down to the shenanigans of Fate and The Lady, but they stay at home all the time this is going on. I only remember The Lady turning up once in person, in The Colour of Magic, and that was to help Rincewind.
Ironically considering Pratchett’s sympathies, it was irreligious humans showing up, in The Last Hero, that was all set to cause more trouble than any of the gods ever did. Yes, you can protest against the gods (whom you don’t worship) not seeing to it that you get to be a victorious barbarian hero for ever - you can bring your curses home by making sure nobody believes in them ever again, and serve them right. Unfortunately it turns out that the price of your mild rebuke is the irrevocable destruction of the world and everyone in it, and even the elephants and the Turtle themselves. Now who’s the cunt?
Thanks for that!
I was thinking more of Pyramids, and other episodes where Gods and godlike beings other than the Consensus Gods of Dunmanifestin, some of them very dangerous and/or insane (Bel-Shamharoth, Nuggan, Quetzovercoatl, the Auditors, the Dungeon Dimensioners), show up and/or meddle. The Consensus Gods are mostly harmless if not annoyed. But the only supernatural beings who ever appear to really help people in any way are the Lady and Death. As for Om, if he really was ignorant of the things done in his name between the times he occasionally showed up, it was because he was indifferent; that’s criminal negligence for a God.
So . . . if Pterry, the God, were to show up? Pterry, Who presumably sees the world kinda like Vimes and kinda like Granny and kinda like Nanny? What does He do?
I know this will sound snarky so I apologize in advance … but did you read the book?
The point was a god with no believers is just a wisp of a god not even aware of its own divinity, let alone with any power. Things, horrible things, were done in his name, and many professed belief, but there was only one who actually believed, and only when Om … happened … to be dropped next to that one believer … did his divine consciousness again faintly spark. Near non-existence is not being criminally negligent, any more than being in a coma is.
Now I don’t know about how much Pratchett would be believed in on the Disc, to be faced with He who created your entire universe and survive? … but here he must have been of great power as many of us at least honestly worshiped that which he created. We believed.
Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
Mayor: All right, all right! I get the point!
He’d still have to face Esme.
I’m reading a collection of his nonfiction, A Slip of the Keyboard. During surgery, he began shouting about a man with sandwiches. He explained to the surgeon later that he’d seen a man in the doorway, offering him sandwiches, and said that it was good to know that on your way to the afterlife, food was provided.
Completely off-topic for the thread, but I just read yesterday about a similar ghost who showed up for 9/11 victims
“A number of workers at the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island who were sifting the rubble from the 9/11 attacks reported seeing a female ghost holding a tray of sandwiches, a new book reveals.”
(I’m not a believer, and not trying to hijack the thread - I’m just amused by the co-incidence of the appearance of otherworldly sandwiches)
There was a Pratchett display set up at my library today and I got all teary-eyed and the little kids in line were staring at me.
Is it O.K. to still feel a Terry Pratchett sized hole in the world?
Good Omens got me and the family through a 19 hour car trip this past weekend, and it made me appreciate him and his writing all the more. I generally don’t get in to the whole grieving for people I’ve never met, but I find myself still sad at the loss.
As am I. And now I’m a bit flipped that everybody is mourning over the loss of a 1 Direction singer (leaving the BAND, ffs!) more than did the actual loss of a literary giant.
They are?
Oh yeah. Trending on FB and Twitter, everybody coming undone. He didn’t die, ffs. He just left the band.
IIRC Pterry received either irate mail or faced an irate American mom, taking him to task for putting out a book ostensibly kid-friendly but filled with so much profanity, without any profanity warnings on the cover. He was most ___ing amused.