a day ago
I'm a Terry Pratchett superfan — here's why you should be too
I n elite literary circles, comic writers are viewed as unserious creatures, worthy of patronising smiles and scant praise. Writers of genre fiction, meanwhile, are truly beneath contempt. And if you combine the two and become a comic writer of fantasy books? You might as well walk into the book club with your pants around your ankles and a nuclear waste sign tattooed on your forehead.
Nobody knew this better than Terry Pratchett, who died ten years ago. He was the creator of the Discworld series of comic fantasy books, which were populated by dwarfs and elves. He was also the most commercially successful author of the 1990s, which was greeted with confusion and disdain by arty types. 'A somewhat galling fact is that Pratchett is Britain's bestselling living novelist,' City Life magazine wailed in 2001. 'His fans can be found down at heavy metal HQ, practising sexual inadequacy and ram raiding,' the NME declared.
