Pratchett, Terry (1948-2015), was a popular English science-fiction writer. Pratchett became famous as the author of a series of comic fantasy novels set on the “Discworld.” The “Discworld” stories take place on a flat, disk-shaped world that is supported by four elephants riding through space on the back of a giant turtle. In these stories, Pratchett mixed fairy-tale elements, magic, and sharp, up-to-date characterizations. Wizards, witches, dwarves, and trolls people the “Discworld” novels. Many of the central characters are men and women who find themselves reluctant heroes in a crisis.
The “Discworld” series began with The Colour of Magic (1983) and continued through more than 40 novels. Critics and readers have praised the series for its spoofs of other science-fiction writers as well as for satirizing such concerns as philosophy, religion, death, and politics. In 1989, Pratchett won the British Science Fiction Award, the United Kingdom’s top award for science-fiction writing, for the “Discworld” series. He won the award again in 1990 for the novel Good Omens, a humorous novel written with the British author Neil Gaiman. The novel was adapted into a six-episode television series of the same name in 2019. The “Discworld” series was the basis for “The Watch,” a television series that premiered in 2021.
Pratchett also wrote a number of novels for young people. His “Bromeliad” trilogy of juvenile fantasy novels consists of Truckers (1989), Diggers (1990), and Wings (1990). His other novels for young readers include Only You Can Save Mankind (1992), Johnny and the Bomb (1997), Sorcery (2001), and The Long Earth and Dodger (both 2012). He won the 1993 Writers Guild of Great Britain award for best children’s book for Johnny and the Dead (1993). The Writers Guild, a trade union representing professional free-lance writers, gives annual awards for the best writing of several types, including books, dramas, screenplays, and children’s books. Queen Elizabeth II knighted Pratchett in 2009.
Terence David John Pratchett was born on April 28, 1948, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. He worked as a journalist from 1965 to 1980 and became a full-time writer in 1987. His nonfiction writings have been collected in A Slip of the Keyboard (2014). Pratchett died on March 12, 2015. After his death, The Time-Travelling Caveman, a collection of his humorous stories for young people, was published in 2020.
