Farewell to Sir Terry
I met Terry Pratchett twice, I think. The first time, after he'd autographed a couple of books for me, I asked him why Death had addressed Rincewind as "CULLY" in The Colour of Magic. He seemed a bit surprised that I couldn't even make a good guess, then explained that it was approximately equivalent to "Bub". This was before the Internet amounted to much. I gather that other people have been confused about this over the years; it's one of the annotations in the L-Space page about TCoM.
We exchanged a couple of E-mail messages over the years. Once, I tossed an idea at him: It's mentioned in a couple of places in the Discworld books that light slows down in a magical field, as it does in a material with a higher index of refraction. Since Dunmanifestin, the home of the Discworld gods at the peak of Cori Celesti (the mountain at the Hub of the Disc) has an extremely high magical field, it would behave rather like a lens - it would produce an effect rather like gravitational lensing in our universe. He replied that he liked the idea and might use it. He never did, but there are any number of reasons why authors are wary of using other peoples' ideas. (I seem to recall that one of the classic SF authors mentioned that extra ideas for a professional writer are somewhat like extra kittens on a farm... not a bad thing, as such, but there isn't a shortage of them.)
When I was writing my Ph.D. thesis, I decided that I'd follow the example of Don Knuth's The TEXBook and begin each chapter with a more-or-less relevant quotation. Two were from Discworld books. Although such brief excerpts are considered "fair use" for purposes of copyright, I contacted each of the authors to ask permission as well as to let them know that I'd enjoyed their work. All, including (then-not-yet Sir) Terry, kindly gave their permission. I started my Appendix section with a quotation from Sourcery, in which the Librarian is repairing some magical books:
The Librarian shook his head and jerked a preoccupied thumb towards a tray of tools.
'Oook,' he commanded. Rincewind nodded miserably, and obediently handed him a pair of long-nosed scissors. The wizard winced as a couple of damaged pages were snipped free and dropped to the floor.
'What are you doing to it?' he managed.
'Oook.'
'An appendectomy? Oh.'
In recent years, Sir Terry has been a strong advocate for legal assisted suicide, an issue that is finally beginning to get the attention and discussion that it deserves. But I'm glad that he was spared having to make that choice for himself; news reports say that he died at home, surrounded by his family, with his cat sleeping on his bed.
I'll miss his wit, his pointed humour.
At risk of mixing my metaphors to the point of misattribution:
-- 427 --
We exchanged a couple of E-mail messages over the years. Once, I tossed an idea at him: It's mentioned in a couple of places in the Discworld books that light slows down in a magical field, as it does in a material with a higher index of refraction. Since Dunmanifestin, the home of the Discworld gods at the peak of Cori Celesti (the mountain at the Hub of the Disc) has an extremely high magical field, it would behave rather like a lens - it would produce an effect rather like gravitational lensing in our universe. He replied that he liked the idea and might use it. He never did, but there are any number of reasons why authors are wary of using other peoples' ideas. (I seem to recall that one of the classic SF authors mentioned that extra ideas for a professional writer are somewhat like extra kittens on a farm... not a bad thing, as such, but there isn't a shortage of them.)
When I was writing my Ph.D. thesis, I decided that I'd follow the example of Don Knuth's The TEXBook and begin each chapter with a more-or-less relevant quotation. Two were from Discworld books. Although such brief excerpts are considered "fair use" for purposes of copyright, I contacted each of the authors to ask permission as well as to let them know that I'd enjoyed their work. All, including (then-not-yet Sir) Terry, kindly gave their permission. I started my Appendix section with a quotation from Sourcery, in which the Librarian is repairing some magical books:
The Librarian shook his head and jerked a preoccupied thumb towards a tray of tools.
'Oook,' he commanded. Rincewind nodded miserably, and obediently handed him a pair of long-nosed scissors. The wizard winced as a couple of damaged pages were snipped free and dropped to the floor.
'What are you doing to it?' he managed.
'Oook.'
'An appendectomy? Oh.'
In recent years, Sir Terry has been a strong advocate for legal assisted suicide, an issue that is finally beginning to get the attention and discussion that it deserves. But I'm glad that he was spared having to make that choice for himself; news reports say that he died at home, surrounded by his family, with his cat sleeping on his bed.
I'll miss his wit, his pointed humour.
At risk of mixing my metaphors to the point of misattribution:
-- 427 --