your teeth in my neck.

Okay so this is a big deal

To me, and to a significant subset of Sir Terry's fans (including most of you who've found this by the tags), his writing is serious commentary on the human condition - politics, prejudice, self-control, revenge vs. justice, religion, idealism, faith in people vs. cynicism, and more - dressed up with fantasy settings and a hefty leavening of humor to make it fun to read. And it is WILDLY fun to read, actual laugh-out-loud or at least a snicker averaging about every page.

But there's this common idea among the "important literature" people that fun and funny books are not also worthwhile or important in the same way.

This is a Discworld book being released WITH ACADEMIC COMMENTARY and AS A PENGUIN CLASSIC. That's a HUGE amount of recognition.

@thebibliosphere

Oh, I’m about to tear up. I had to fight so hard to do my thesis on Pratchett because the university didn't like what they considered pop culture being studied as literature and this is just... Existing. 🥹

In Advanced Higher English, we had to do a mini dissertation on two pieces of literature of our choice and I did Night Watch and Les Misérables so this is bringing me so much joy.

Terry Pratchett Humble Bundle, anyone?

For real, if you've never gotten the chance to sit down and read all of these, here's your chance. It's a good time, a good cause, and a good price.

Holy shit folks if you wanted a sign that now's the time to start on Discworld....

NEXT! AND WHAT’S YOUR NAME, LITTLE…He hesitated, but rallied, and continued…PERSON?

The kid looked up. There was a girl watching them. People were passing up and down the street, and some of them walked between the kid and the girl, but she stood stock still and just stared at him. And at Maurice. She had the same nail-you-to-the-wall look that he associated with Peaches. She looked like the kind of person who asked questions. And her hair was too red and her nose was too long. And she wore a long black dress with black lace fringing. No good comes of that sort of thing.

--The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents (Terry Pratchett)

From Neil Gaiman’s Conversation with Michael Chabon 2015:

In the years that followed, we would have the kind of conversations where Terry would say to me things like, “So I’m done with the Discworld and now I’m going to do this big science fiction series, I’ve come up with it, and this is the plot of the science fiction series.”, and would tell me all about it and get to the end, and I’d say, “Well, that’s all very well, but you should do a book about Death.” And then a week later my phone would ring and I’d pick it up, and a voice would say, “You bastard, it’s called Mort.” and he’d put the phone down.

Terry wrote to me and he said  ”You have to do this ”- he began this email, I went back and looked at it the other day -  ”I know how busy you are, but you are the only person who has the same understanding of and passion for the old girl that I do, so you got to do it ‘cause I want to see it.” And I said yes. And very shortly after, Terry died. So now he couldn’t see it.

So I had to make the thing that he wanted, which meant it became kind of a mad passion project. The things that if it was a me-project I would’ve given away on, things I wouldn’t have held the line on like some kind of a mad-eyed prophet.

Suddenly I’m going ”No, you cannot take this out. This is going to be in there. Because Terry wrote that scene and he would have wanted to see it, so it’s in there.” And they’re like ”Oh, but do you know how much money we could save if you don’t actually see Agnes Nutter being blown up and arrested and dragged to the stake, we got this idea,” said an early bunch of producers who later left, ”that we could have woodcuts and the narrator explaining what happened. Isn’t that just as good?”

And I sort of mentally run that by the ghostly Terry Pratchett in the back of my head, it’s like: ”Terry, is that just as good?” And he’s like: ”Fuck ‘em.”