Saturday 14 March 2015

There is now less colour in magic

As far as I can remember, I've only been in the presence of Sir Terry Pratchett one day. He did a signing in Borders in Wellington (when we had a Borders), and then he did a talk out in Lower Hutt, and I attended both events. I remember that more than what I remember him talking about.

One of the things I got signed was my copy of Maskerade. It was my first hardcover Discworld book (I had paperbacks before then), and I got it slightly cheap because the spine was a little dented. It didn't matter to the contents, it was a great read, and is my favourite of the series.

My first book was Pyramids, a nice stand alone that contains essential Discworld without needing to know the rest of it. It introduced Anhk-Morpork to me, and I've read every Discworld book since. And while I personally don't like his sci-fi entries, there really isn't a bad answer to "what is your favourite Pratchett book?"

And one other item I got signed... it rather surprised him, I don't know how many others ever did this, but I definitely did. I got him to sign my orang-utan.



[END]

4 comments:

Al said...

Nice tribute Jamas! I read his books avidly throughout the late 80s' and early 90s'. Consequentally, whenever I think of death, he's always riding a black horse called 'binky'. He had that same deftness with the absurd as Douglas Adams and similarly made it seem so easy. Countless would-be-imitators have always shown that it definitely isn't, however.
You have an autograph-utan? Respect!

Jamas Enright said...

Everyone's got some kind of Pratchett story... although I do have to point out that Binky is white.

Al said...

Ooops - Discworld FAIL. Well; I suppose I have my own Prachett story now!

Jet Simian said...

My Pratchett story is that Meromo and Mrs Simian and I went to listen to a guest lecture he did at the Otago Museum one Saturday back in '95, on the occasion of a fossil turtle (P. terrypratchetti. as any fule kno)being named after him. A fun lecture, probably furnished with some well-worn anecdotes (the old lady and DEATH etc) but with a sizeable student audience lapping it up.