Sir Terence David John Pratchett, OBE (born 28 April 1948) is an English[3] novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels. Pratchett's first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971, and since his first Discworld novel (The Colour of Magic) was published in 1983, he has written two books a year on average. Pratchett is also known for close collaboration on adaptations of his books.

Finished The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents a little over two weeks ago.

I'll summarise my review:

GO READ IT NOW.

Terry Pratchett's Alzheimer's Speech in Full
this is bristol.co.uk ^ | March 13, 2008 | Terry Pratchett

Posted on 17 March 2008 14:56:20 by Hetty_Fauxvert

My name is Terry Pratchett, author of a series of inexplicably successful fantasy books and I have had Alzheimer's now for the past two years plus, in which time I managed to write a couple of bestsellers.

I have a rare variant. I don't understand very much about it, but apparently if you are going to have Alzheimer's it's a good one to have.

So, a stroke of luck there then!

Interestingly enough, when I was diagnosed last December by those nice people at Addenbrooke's, I started a very different journey through dementia.

This one had much better scenery, interesting and often very attractive inhabitants, wonderful wildlife and many opportunities for excitement and adventure.

Those of you who's last experience with computer games was looking at Lara Croft's buttocks might not be aware of how good they have become as audio and visual experiences, although I would concede that Lara's buttocks were a visual experience in their own right.

But in this case I was travelling through a country that was part of the huge computer game called Oblivion, which is so beautifully detailed that I have often ridden around it to enjoy the scenery and weather and have hardly bothered to kill anything at all.

At the same time as I began exploring the wonderful Kingdom of Dementia, which is next door to the Kingdom of Mania, I was also experiencing the slightly more realistic experience of being a 59 year old who finds they have early onset Alzheimer's.

Apparently I reacted to this situation in a reasonably typical way, with a sense of loss and abandonment with an incoherent, or perhaps I should say, violently coherent fury that made the Miltonic Lucifer's rage against Heaven seem a bit miffed by comparison. That fire still burns.

I want to go on writing! Admittedly, that means I have to stay alive.

You can't write books when you are dead, unless your name is L. Ron Hubbard.

And so now I'm a game for real. It's a nasty disease, surrounded by shadows and small, largely unseen tragedies.

People don't know what to say, unless they have had it in the family.

People ask me why I announced that I had Alzheimer's.

My response was: why shouldn't I?

I remember when people died "of a long illness" now we call cancer by its name, and as every wizard knows, once you have a thing's real name you have the first step to its taming.

We are at war with cancer, and we use that vocabulary.

We battle, we are brave, we survive. And we have a large armaments industry.

For those of us with early onset in particular, it's more of a series of skirmishes.

My GP is helpful and patient, but I don't have a specialist locally.

The NHS kindly allows me to buy my own Aricept because I'm too young to have Alzheimer's for free, a situation I'm okay with, in a want-to-kick-a-politician-in-the-teeth-kind of way.

But, on the whole, you try to be your own doctor.

The internet twangs night and day. I walk a lot and take more supplements than the Sunday papers. We talk to one another and compare regimes.

Part of me lives in a world of new age remedies and science, and some of the science is a little like voodoo.

But science was never an exact science, and personally I'd eat the arse out of a dead mole if it offered a fighting chance.

Fortunately, I have the Greek Chorus to calm me down

Soon after I told the world my website fell over and my PA had to spend the evening negotiating more bandwidth.

I had more than 60,000 messages within the first few hours.

Most of them were readers and well-wishers.

Some of them wanted to sell me snake oil and I'm not necessarily going to dismiss all of these, as I have never found a rusty snake.

But a large handful came from 'experienced' sufferers, successfully fighting a holding action, and various people in universities and research establishments who had, despite all expectations, risen to high places in their various professions even while being confirmed readers of my books.

And they said; can we help? They are the Greek Chorus. Only two of them are known to each other and they give me their advice on various options that I suggest.

They include a Wiccan, too. It's a good idea to cover all the angles.

It was interesting when I asked about having my dental amalgam fillings removed.

There was a chorus of ? hrumph, no scientific evidence, hrumph???., but if you can afford to have it done properly then it certainly won't do any harm and you never know.

And that is where I am, along with many others, scrabbling to stay ahead long enough to be there when the cure, which I suspect may be more like a regime, comes along.

Say it will be soon - there's nearly as many of us as there are cancer sufferers, and it looks as if the number of people with the disease will double within a generation.

And in most cases you will find alongside the sufferer you will find a spouse, suffering as much. It's a shock and a shame, then, to find out that funding for research is three per cent of that which goes to find cancer cures.

Perhaps that is why, for example, that I know three people who have successfully survived brain tumours but no-one who has beaten Alzheimer's???although among the Greek Chorus are some who are giving it a hard time.

I'd like a chance to die like my father did - of cancer, at 86.

Remember, I'm speaking as a man with Alzheimer's, which strips away your living self a bit at a time.

Before he went to spend his last two weeks in a hospice he was bustling around the house, fixing things.

He talked to us right up to the last few days, knowing who we were and who he was.

Right now, I envy him. And there are thousands like me, except that they don't get heard.

So let's shout something loud enough to hear. We need you and you need money. I'm giving you a million dollars. Spend it wisely.

Haven't gotten into that series in a bit. the humour is carefully hidden in prose anyone that didn't complete TOEFL qualifications is likely to miss.

I'm intending to start exploring the Discoworld soon...

Any idea which title to start with..thanks!

Hmmm. There are many "sub" series of Discworld books, like the Rincewind tales, Witches, etc. Pls refer to following image:

But it's just a rough guide, my 1st Discworld books were Small Gods & Hogfather. Based on above, I suggest starting with the first 3 of either the City Watch books, Witches and/or Death books.

Hey, i actually like Neil Gaiman's writings. Will i like Pratchett? 

Try Good Omens, which was written by both of them. If you like it, you'll definitely like at least 75% Pratchett's stuff.

Yup i read that, and i kinda liked it. Any nice titles from Pratchett to recommend? 

Yup i read that, and i kinda liked it. Any nice titles from Pratchett to recommend? 

The new novel abit dull compared to his previous works.. "Unseen Academicals"

Discworld Rocks!!! Love the humour and thought provokingness of it. i have a few of the novels, really would like to get them all though. Sigh... books sure are damn expensive in Malaysia.

“Sir Terry Pratchett and Rod Brown, managing director of Prime Focus Productions, have announced an agreement for the unprecedented and exclusive worldwide television rights to create brand new storylines for the iconic characters of Pratchett’s phenomenally successful Discworld series.

“Terry’s universal success has seen him create one of the leading fantasy fiction franchises of all time, with 70 million worldwide sales of his 38-book Discworld titles. This will rise to 39 following another book to be published in October 2011. While there have been three successful mini-series adaptations of his Discworld books made for television in the UK, this is the first time Pratchett has granted a production company the international rights to his characters and their world. The agreement will see Prime Focus Productions create a series of new stories exclusively for a television audience.

“The main focus of the series will be the bustling, highly mercantile, largely untrustworthy and vibrant city of Ankh-Morpork. It will follow the day-to-day activities of the men, women, trolls, dwarves, vampires and several other species who daily pound its ancient cobbles. This will of course also include Igor in the forensics department. Terry commonly refers to the City Watch police force series as ‘the jewels in his Discworld Crown’. These richly developed and highly compelling characters will feature in a ‘crime of the week’ episodic storyline. As each weekly adventure unfolds, viewers will be taken on a ride through Pratchett’s genius imagination, with the author overseeing the creation of the series. In this world, wild and exciting encounters with werewolves, dragons, dwarfs, trolls, golems and the classic heroes and villains are an everyday occurrence… many of whom even make outstanding crime fighters!

“‘I believe the globally successful Discworld franchise will readily translate to the small screen in the form of a high-end, mass appeal weekly drama series, giving the audience the anticipation and excitement of brand new Discworld stories every week through the medium of television, rather than books,’ said Rod Brown, managing director of Prime Focus Productions. ‘It’s a huge responsibility to get this right for Terry, his legions of Discworld fans and the new followers that we’ll attract along the way. I believe they’ll be in for a treat with a high calibre writing team already attached, including Monty Python’s Terry Jones and Gavin Scott (Small Soldiers, The Borrowers). We’ve already spoken to a number of international broadcasters who’ve shown early interest and we hope to move forward very quickly to bring this exciting project to fruition.”

“Sir Terry Pratchett said of the agreement: ‘I’m very excited and incredibly happy about this because Rod was co-head of the team that produced the very successful Sky One adaptations. My message of encouragement to him now is: don’t bugger it up!’”

Read more: Pratchett Exclusive http://www.sfx.co.uk/2011/03/21/pratchett-.../#ixzz1IAw72cS2

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