We Have Reached the End of Cake

I logged onto my email this afternoon to find my inbox full of sadfaces. That is how I found out about the death of Terry Pratchett.

There probably isn't one single other author who made me as much who I am today as Sir Terry. I was introduced to his books at the end of high school, and they became my How To Be A Human manual. The summer I was drawing Goblet of Fire pictures I was starting Interesting Times* and Small Gods**, and when Pottery Art really took off I was polishing off the last of my unread Discworlds, just in time to catch The Truth as it was published. I remember the feeling upon finishing it, that there was now nothing new to discover about Ankh-Morpork, and how oddly desolate that made me feel ... well, here were all are now, together.
*Not, I discovered, the best book to start with, but it got me hooked nevertheless.
**I frequently recommend this as a starter, but there was something special about reading it for the first time at the height of a blazing summer in a desert theocracy.

Oddly, though, I found that in the face of all the sadness in my inbox, I wasn't particularly distraught, and sent what were probably alarmingly sanguine replies to my corespondents. They all knew what a huge part he'd played in my life, and most of them had been introduced to him through my work as The Pratchett Pusher. But my last few years hanging out with dead guys has given me a certain perspective ...

It is, of course, a pity that he of all people was struck by a degenerative brain disease relatively early in life. For that matter it is a pity that he didn't live to 120 with all his faculties intact, but that's hardly something we can all expect. What we can all expect is that someday, sooner or later, we will die; when that day comes, we will be very lucky if we can look back as he could on a life so well lived. He was incredibly prolific, hugely popular and successful in his lifetime, maintained creative control and the highest standards of storytelling, touched millions of people, administered new ideas and old ideas with a spoonful of sugar, and used his powers for good. He saw the foibles of mankind starkly and still managed to be a humanist; Neil Gaiman talked about his anger but what impressed me most was his hope (that greatest of all treasures). It's just possible that by releasing his imagination into the world, a small percentage of people will be changed by and live up to that hope, and pass it on, incrementally bettering the human condition. It's hard to imagine a more gratifying legacy than that.

We've had seven years to prepare for this day. He had seven years to prepare for it, too, and didn't waste a single one of them, adding advocacy to his writing regimen and no doubt putting his affairs well in order. That's a mercy, too; imagine if he'd had a heart attack in 2007 instead of an Alzheimer's diagnosis. And in the end he got to go at home, with family, and his cat, having seen a positively glorious first weekend of spring, rather than clinically in a foreign land as he was planning to do.

We have lost a bright light, it's true. The world is a poorer place than it was a week ago. But it's an infinitely richer place than it was thirty years ago, thanks to him, and I'm more grateful for those thirty years than sad at the light burning out. The light it cast will continue reflecting and refracting down the years, after all, down the long corridor of infinitely reflected mirrors, possibly even growing in intensity and reach. Maybe now we'll finally get to call his books 'literature' and take them as seriously as they deserve ... as long as we don't forget to enjoy them, too.

WHAT IS THAT SENSE INSIDE YOUR HEAD OF WISTFUL REGRET THAT THINGS ARE THE WAY THEY APPARENTLY ARE?

"Sadness, master. I think. Now – "

I AM SADNESS.