Top 10 Reasons why Terry Pratchett is Amazing

Terry Pratchett is a hero. Everything he does… he does like a total boss. We just wanted to quantify it.

1. He invented Granny Weatherwax and Commander Vimes and a world built on four elephants balancing on a wobbly turtle. Nuff said.

2. He looks like Odin. He does it on purpose, the scallywag. But we don’t want him to be blinded to complete the look. That would be a step too far.

3. He’s added squillions of solar panels to his house. So, yeah, the earth loves him.

4. He’s built an observatory in his garden. It’s not an overstatement to say the entire blimming cosmos loves him.

5. At over 5,000 years old, the Rollright stones are the oldest stone circle in the UK. Take that, Stonehenge. Terry Pratchett tried to buy them in order to protect them. We wish he’d succeeded – they’d be safe in his hands. We’d like him to buy the Pyramids and the whales too.

6. When he got knighted by the Queen in 2009, he decided every knight should have a sword – so he only went and made himself one! He used iron ore from a friend’s field and everything. It was, obviously, the most medieval and magical sword ever. He says of the mission, “we lugged 80 kilos of iron ore from a field, used clay from the garden and straw to make a kiln, and lit the kiln with wildfire by making it with a bow.” Truly, he is Sir Terry. And also one of King Arthur’s Whispering Knights, but we’re not allowed to mention that.

7. In 2007, Terry Pratchett was diagosed with a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease. He has spoken freely and honestly about it, made large public donations to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust (Alzheimer’s dementia receives only 3% of funding in comparison to cancer) and filmed a BBC documentary on the subject that would reduce a marble statue to tears. You may not have seen the documentary, but please read the 2008 Terry Pratchett Alzheimer’s speech in full to get a taste of what a warm, optimistic and valiant man he is.

8. He’s cast a spell on reality by bringing his fictional world into ours. Not only are his flights of fancy rooted deeply in the cutting edge science of today, it’s also turned out that Discworld’s fictional city of Ankh-Morpok is twinned with Wincanton and fans go there every year to celebrate Hogswatch Weekend – the Discworld Christmas.

9. He is a very vocal supporter of assisted death, which is currently illegal in the UK and many other places. Visiting the Digitas clinic in Switzerland, his personal views on the subject were: “I live in hope I can jump before I am pushed.”

10. He has set up the Terry Pratchett First Novel Award. The winning unpublished adult novel, entered before December 2012, gets a publishing contract. Sir Terry will make it so. There is no end to his altruism. Or, if it is finite, then only in the sense that the universe is. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, astrophysics.

Terry Pratchett doing his Odin looky-alikey. But where are his ravens Huginn and Muninn?

Terry Pratchett holds the sword he made himself like a boss