Off for a curry with Death.

I was always a strange kid, and sometimes that got a bit lonely. Books got me through most of the truly difficult patches - my dad will tell you that I was always escaping to various corners of the house with one book or another. I read anything I could get my hands on - fiction, non-fiction, poetry, even cereal boxes. As I got older, my predilection for sci-fi and fantasy became very apparent. There was no room for feeling lonely when you were adventuring to strange new worlds.

And so it was that on a real life adventure of my own, on a layover in ATL on my way to England in 1999, I discovered Maskerade in an airport bookshop. I remember reading it cover to cover on the overseas flight and wishing I had savored it instead, a few pages at a time. Sir Terry Pratchett was the first author whose works I sought with any regularity. When I got home toward the middle of that summer, I started from the very beginning and read my way through nearly every Discworld book out there. I even played the video game. Sir Terry created such a rich world populated with characters, human and otherwise, who were simply unforgettable. His books were the first to make me belly laugh while reading, and frantically turn the last few pages back and forth hoping for just a little bit more. 

That would be enough, plenty really to mark him as one of my all time favorite authors. But in addition to allowing me to see the beautiful, flawed, hilarious world he created, he also introduced me to the work of Neil Gaiman. Through Good Omens I found yet another author whose work inspired me and allowed me to escape. Which is funny, really. Years later, when I started dating my husband, he did the whole journey backwards. He started reading Neil's books because he knew how much I loved them, and after he got around to Good Omens, he went straight for the Discworld series. 

We're both a little sad today. Sir Terry didn't just tell stories. As I've said already, that would be enough. He gave this amazing gift of himself, a shining pinpoint in the night sky that if viewed from just the right angle will always look to me like a flat disc, held up by four elephants, carried on the back of Great A'Tuin.