Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes

"Terry Pratchett, creator of the phenomenally bestselling Discworld series, knight of the realm, and holder of more honorary doctorates than he knew what to do with, was known and loved around the world for his wildly popular books, his brilliant satirical humor, and for the humanity of his campaign work. But that's only part of the picture.

"At the time of his death in 2015, he was working on his finest story yet—his own. The story of a boy who was told by his headteacher aged six that he would never amount to anything, and spent the rest of his life proving him wrong. Who walked out on his A levels to become a journalist, encountering some very dead bodies and the idea for his first novel before he reached twenty. Who celebrated his knighthood by smelting himself a sword, and who, on being awarded the prestigious Carnegie Medal, switched it during the prizegiving for a chocolate replica and proceeded to eat it in front of an audience of horrified librarians.

"Tragically, Terry ran out of time to complete the memoir he so desperately wanted to write. But now, in the only authorized biography of one of our best known and best loved writers, his manager and friend Rob Wilkins picks up where Terry left off, and with the help of friends, family, and Terry's own unpublished work, tells the full story of an extraordinary life." --Amazon.

Got it in the mail yesterday, then spent an intense 24 hours (from 9 AM to 1 AM, and then from 7 AM to 9 AM again) reading it all the way through. Wilkins is an engaging writer, and he orchestrates Pratchett’s unfinished autobiography with the memories of Sir Terry’s wife, daughter, and friends, as well as his own experience (as personal assistant, friend, and ultimately one of the managers of his estate) into a masterful, lively, and almost seamless whole, garnished (in the best Terry Pratchett manner) with amusing footnotes aplenty. Wilkins’ style has been polished by helping Pratchett dictate and edit his novels when the ravages of Alzheimer’s were slowing him down.

But how quickly his life moved when he was alive! Born into a working-class family, published his first story in a sci-fi mag at 14, left school before graduating to become a journalist, an amateur engineer and science buff, became the publicity man for the nuclear power plant in his area, and wrote several science fiction novels before hitting upon the golden idea of Discworld. He quit his job to take up writing full-time at the age of 39 and never looked back.

The Discworld novels evolved from a rather simple parody of Fantasy and D&D into a remarkably flexible and deep vehicle for examining the human condition (even when that human was, say, an orc) while all the time keeping up a level of humor that never failed to help the medicine go down. It was Pratchett’s careful curation that never let his work devolve into mere “intellectual property”; this is amply exemplified by the fact that his will stipulated that the hard drive that contained his unfinished Discworld stories be flattened by a steamroller. There would be no continuations by less talented authors, as had happened to Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker books.

As usual it is the dibs and dabs of his life rather than the simple facts or catalogue of his successes that interest me. His encounter with reading Tolkien as a boy, his meeting writers at the early sci-fi conventions (including Michael Moorcock and Arthur C. Clarke), his muted aggravation when J. K. Rowling surpassed him as Britain’s favorite Fantasy author, his chance encounters with Neil Gaiman before they became friends and writing partners, and so on and on. You get a glimpse of the restlessness that had him writing two novels every year (and sometimes three), his reaction to suddenly having tons of money (remarkably humble and generous), and his anger at the greed and stupidity that tried to latch onto his creations.

What you see much less of (beyond the simple facts) are his wife Lyn and daughter Rhianna, perhaps because Wilkins is reluctant to overanalyze living persons, close friends, and co-workers in the preservation of Pratchett’s legacy. Lyn particularly seems a bit shadowy, but maybe that’s the way she wanted it. Wilkins himself is a big self-deprecating presence in the latter half of the book, mainly because this was the part of Pratchett’s life that he was deeply involved in.

Having heard bits and pieces of Pratchett’s story over the years since I first received The Colour of Magic by accident in the early 80’s, I am glad to finally see his biography laid out in order and stripped of some of the trappings of adoration that it has accrued. I wouldn’t say it was made of ‘plain’ facts. The facts about this remarkable author are baroque, interesting, and humorous enough to need no embellishments.