Terry Pratchett was often confused with Terry Gilliam in the early days. Being in awe of Monty Python, I would come to a dead stop wherever the names Terry, Cleese, Idle, Palin, Graham would come up.. there were two Terry-s in the team, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, and with a diverse portfolio of endeavors to their credit, I would give special care to "Terry" wherever I came across it. And hence I ran into Mr. Pratchett sometimes, but only to browse through in no particular regard.
Then I picked up some background on Pratchett's Discworld series of novels. There were 41 of them. Starting 1971 (The Carpet People), they kept coming until 2015 (Shepherd's Crown), the year of his death. More than 85 million books sold in 37 languages, which also made him the best-selling UK author in the 1990s.
His early interests included astronomy.[19] He collected Brooke Bond tea cards about space, owned a telescope[20] and wanted to be an astronomer but lacked the necessary mathematical skills.[19] He developed an interest in reading science fiction
Pratchett was well known for his penchant for wearing large, black fedora hats,[34] as seen on the inside back covers of most of his books. His style has been described as "more that of urban cowboy than city gent."
Concern for the future of civilisation prompted him to install five kilowatts of photovoltaic cells (for solar energy) at his house.[36] Having been interested in astronomy since childhood, he had an observatory built in his garden.[19][20] An asteroid (127005 Pratchett) is named after him.
In late 2009, he did make himself a sword, with the help of his friends. He told a Times Higher Educationinterviewer that “At the end of last year I made my own sword. I dug out the iron ore from a field about 10 miles away – I was helped by interested friends. We lugged 80 kilos of iron ore, used clay from the garden and straw to make a kiln, and lit the kiln with wildfire by making it with a bow.' Colin Smythe, his long-term friend and agent, donated some pieces of meteoric iron – ‘thunderbolt iron’ has a special place in magic and we put that in the smelt, and I remember when we sawed the iron apart it looked like silver.
Mar 12, 2015, he breathed his last, the verbose knight.
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