The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet . This was the Captain Samuel Vimes “Boots” theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
I have a lovely collection of his books, many of which my mum got signed for me. And she’s also be picking up first editions over the years which is a nearly complete set!
I never got to meet him sadly. The world is a poorer place without him in it.
One of the greatest authors of all time for me, and I mean that entirely sincerely. Capable of navigating all around the human condition with immense perceptiveness, warmth, and empathy, while simultaneously writing books that I was desperate to read. I have none in the house, and that deeply saddens me - my granddad had almost all of them when he died, but I don’t know who they ended up with. I don’t know if my mum still has any of my copies kicking about, but I should ask her. I can’t think of many authors whose work I’d rather pick up for a casual read.
Big fan of Discworld, the guards and Death particularly. Actually never really read the Witches stuff, but nice to know it’s out there waiting.
So much of it went over my head as a young teenager going through the books in the library, I’d probably enjoy any revisit a lot more.
Remember when he died trying to explain to my boss the announcement tweets, that Death was a central character in his work and essentially a sympathetic one, they were very confused.
It feels very churlish to say but I do think he work declined towards the end - the last book I read was Unseen Academicals, and maybe it was just the subject matter but it felt a long way from his peak.
Think he’s great. I started very young with him - I read The Light Fantastic when it was first published, and my transition from annoying pubescent kid to a (somewhat) maturer adult mirrored the way the books went from excuses for one liners to more rounded novels. I think I take a lot of my world view from him tbh - the admiration for how amazing people can be coupled with anger and exasperation at how frequently they’re not is definitely a big part of my outlook. He was a great humanitarian writer, and a rare example of someone being massively commercially successful while producing quality stuff, like an Ed Sheehan who was actually good.
I “met” him at book signings a few times, the most memorable being for the hardback of Wyrd Sisters. We were in London for a few days, which was a major undertaking from Plymouth in my youth, and I wanted to go to the Fantasy Inn (now defunct specialist SF&F bookshop at the bottom of Charing Cross Road) so off we went and there was a poster in the window advertising him signing that afternoon! Couldn’t believe it so in we went, and he was just sat behind the counter, no queue or anything. Could probably have had a nice chat if I wasn’t such a nervous and starstruck fifteen year old kid.
Wish he was still with us, and so does my dad who has had to actually think about what to get me for Christmas for the last seven years instead of automatically picking up the new Pratchett.
Unseen Academicals is one of his weakest ones for sure, but it is bit of an outlier in the later books, and the others are mostly up to the usual mid to late Pratchett quality (you can tell that the posthumous Shepherd’s Crown is still one draft short of being properly finished).
This mirrors my growing up with him too - I remember a friend of my dad’s leaving a copy of Colour of Magic at our house and being told it was probably a bit old for me, but I was hooked
Pratchett was a massive part of my reading growing up. Started with Truckers, Diggers and Wings and then Discworld. The witch ones were my favourites. Still got this signed t-shirt my mum queued up two hours to get me, alongside a signed copy of Men At Arms. Was mega nice of her, though wish she’d let me bunk school to attend. She sowed over his signature so that it’d still be there when the silver pen came out in the wash.
Read a bunch of the early ones in late primary - early high school, really loved them at the time and for some reason haven’t re read anything of his since. But I absolutely loved those books and he sounds like a cool as shit guy.
Her Indoors decided to make an effort to read fiction a few years ago to stop the phone poison induced brain rot, and it’s been really lovely to see her discover him and fall in love with his stuff in her 30s. I would like to read some too, but her rule is not to own books unless you love them and they’re your favourites and they must be aesthetically pleasing on the shelf and all match. So she just gets whatever’s in the library when she goes, picks them up in no order, if there’s a Discworld she hasn’t read then she reads it. So she’s read a load of later ones and none of the classics. I wanted to get her a nice library of some of the early ones, all in a matching set with nice spines she could put on the shelf. And then selfishly I could also re read them because my ADHD means I have about 6 things in the middle of being read at any time, so it takes me months to finish reading a book, the library isn’t feasible. Couldn’t find any such thing for her birthday, but I’ve always got an eye out for next year or Christmas.
