Terry Pratchett's unfinished novels destroyed by steamroller

[joosters]

Good to see his wishes fulfilled. In the end, it was his choice and no-one else's.

In comparison, Douglas Adams' remaining incomplete notes were turned into a book after he died (The Salmon Of Doubt). As a fan, it was frustrating to read - you could see his moments of genius, but the gaps in the story and the unrefined parts of the text were a let down. I gladly bought the book, but after finishing it, I'm not sure it was a good choice to publish the unfinished writings.

If an author had a very-nearly complete book, I reckon it might be worthwhile to let someone else do the final tidying up and publish, but if Terry Pratchett's remaining works were lots of partially complete writings, I think it would be a poor reflection on the author to let someone else work on them.

[dalbasal]

I liked 'Salmon of Doubt,' personally. It felt a lot like a eulogy to me, and apropriate. There were reminders of how he thought, and why the way he thought was special. There were hints at all the work he left undone. The tragic loss of his premature death. What could have been.

It also left some sense of who he was, what he cared about and considered important, who his friends were.

[tripzilch]

On the other hand, if it weren't for the Salmon of Doubt, I wouldn't have realized Adams' genius writings on other (non-fiction) topics besides THHGTTG and Dirk Gently. In fairness, I could have found that out in other ways if I'd have looked, but thanks to Salmon of Doubt I've come to appreciate the man's writings and personality in a much broader way.

So I say it was a good thing overall. Even though it was also sad because it was the unfinished writings of a dead author I love.

[nathancahill]

Same with Tolkien. His son collected a lot of notes and half-finished writing, and published them as a number of different books, like "The Book of Lost Tales".

It has moments where Tolkien's skill shines through, but it's much harder to read. I can't really recommend them.

The Silmarillion on the other hand, seems to have mostly been finished when Tolkien passed.

[codeulike]

I thought the essays in Salmon of Doubt were fascinating though (half of the book was a collection of previously published essays)

[exit]

i don't follow how it reflects poorly on the author. maybe it reflects poorly on our grasp of the creative processes.

[bankerswon]

Whilst I love his writing, the last couple of books I read of his were, in my opinion, poor and not worth releasing. I can understand why he'd have wanted this. Nasty illness.

[lproven]

A fair point.

I would have liked to see what his existing writing partners -- Neil Gaiman or Stephen Baxter, for instance -- could have done. But it's not what he wanted.

[paulajohnson]

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand this was his wish, but on the other hand I am sure that future generations of pratchettologists will mourn the loss.

[Ntrails]

It's interesting the parallels I see between this and right to die.

He didn't want to destroy his work whilst he could still work. But if he waits too long and misses the opportunity to take action whilst in good health he may lose control over it. Without the other limiting factors - this feels like a very easy call. I'm thrilled that he trusted people to see his wishes through - and as importantly that they've shown themselves to be deserving of said trust

[klipt]

> pratchettologists

Re Terry's opinion on 'pratchettologists', may I point you to the following in the Pratchett Quote File: https://www.lspace.org/books/pqf/alt-fan-pratchett.html

"I save about twenty drafts -- that's ten meg of disc space -- and the last one contains all the final alterations. Once it has been printed out and received by the publishers, there's a cry here of 'Tough shit, literary researchers of the future, try getting a proper job!' and the rest are wiped."

-- (Terry Pratchett, alt.fan.pratchett)

[laumars]

As a Pratchett fan I welcome his wish as it means his legacy is left as he had intended it to be written.

[tjwds]

Did a bit of poking around, it looks like there's a substantial collection of his materials at the Senate House Library at the University of London. [1]

These materials include quite a few interesting research angles: draft manuscripts of published works, unpublished stories, other ephemera including letters, & biographies by other authors.

[1] http://www.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/resources/Pratchett.pdf

[mirekrusin]

For cases like this there should be Long Bearded Commissioner who decides to split the country in half - one side would get the papers and the other would pretend they were destroyed. Each citizen should be given a choice in which reality to live in.

[roceasta]

What's the opposite of a Pratchett novel? If it were a matter of losing this then Pratchett fans and experts would presumably not mourn. However now consider the case of an almost-but-not-quite Pratchett novel. Though this is not-a-Pratchett novel, it is deceptively and misleadingly not-a-Pratchett novel, because it still resembles one. It therefore stands the greatest chance of leading fans down the garden path and distorting the overall body of work.

[userbinator]

but on the other hand I am sure that future generations of pratchettologists will mourn the loss.

It might not be a stretch to say that future generations would have the technology to recover the data, if past trends are any indication:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ancient-scrolls-blacke...

As far as physical destruction goes, this isn't even that extreme.

[excalibur]

This is dramatic and certainly renders the drive itself useless, but this is not how you securely destroy data. The bits on those platters are still largely recoverable. Do Terry a favor and run that drive over a degausser (or at least a really big magnet) before putting it in a museum. And let everyone know you did it. Remove the temptation for someone to steal it, attempt a forensic recovery, and try to sell unfinished Terry Pratchett novels that the author never intended to see the light of day.

[Johnny555]

That sounds like a lot of money to spend to get fragments of notes for an unfinished book that you can't even sell as "Terry Pratchett's Unfinished Book" because his estate would sue you. Not to mention the legal risk of stealing the hard drive fragments then publicly admitting that you did it when you publish your book.

[phreack]

Before anyone else gets enraged, this was Terry's will being honored. However, there's a debate to be had regarding whether it would have been worthy to release his final works even if incomplete and against his wishes.

[philh]

If Terry had expected us to ignore his wishes, how would we have acted differently in life? Would he have destroyed them himself just in case? Would he have done that before completing The Shepherd's Crown, or even an earlier book?

I honestly don't know, but it's worth asking the question. That's how we can expect the next Terry Pratchett to act, if we ignore this Terry Pratchett's wishes.

(I should note that even if the answer is that he would have shrugged and let us release his unfinished works, I still think we should obey his wishes. Terry belongs to Terry, no one else has a right to him.)

[senectus1]

meh, I dont care what "debate" there is about it. It was his dying wish. Not for filling that is disrespectful in the extreme.

He wants his legacy to be as static as possible and not pimped out and whore'd to the highest bidder. Fair enough I say.

[clarkevans]

I've found Ursla Vernon (http://www.redwombatstudio.com/) to be a witty and lucid writer much in the spirit of Sir. Pratchett.

[rusk]

Franz Kafka had similar wishes, that his friend was to destroy all his work. I can't say I'm "glad" per se that he didn't since such emotions are antithetical to Kafka, but I suppose it is for the best, culturally that his friend went ahead and published them ...

I suppose it's a little different given Pratchett's stuff here was "unfinished" tho Kafka could have argued all his stuff was unfinished too ...

[Apocryphon]

Would this qualify as an addition to this list?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_work

[jrimbault]

I was amazed to not see the handle my scrollbar reduced to a tiny pixel. This list could be orders of magnitude larger.

[inDigiNeous]

Well to be honest his more recent books started to be more dull in a way, although I respect deeply his work, especially with the earlier books, but maybe the alzheimer started to have an effect also on his writing. I've read most of his works until Snuff or so, but those 3 - 5 books before that just really didn't had the same magic anymore, so maybe it's for the best.

[SamBam]

Absolutely the writing quality had started to diminish -- it was at the point that I just felt sadness, and that I was doing Pratchett a disservice to even read his later books, as I think the Pratchett of 10 years ago wouldn't have wanted them to be written, if he knew.

[jff]

Agreed; 'Raising Steam' made me so sad I couldn't finish it (I thought it was a much better story when titled 'Making Money', and even better when it was called 'Going Postal').

[cm2012]

I thought Unseen Academicals was his best book.

[potus_putin]

I understand from the Guardian article that the last two books ( and possibly more ) were ghostwritten.

[orf]

That's one way to clear your internet history after you die.

[ferd_erik]

GNU Terry Pratchett

[jamiethompson]

That's a very old looking HDD. It seems odd that his most recent work would be on that.

[dspillett]

Could easily have been a drive that had been in his main work machine for quite some time. He no doubt had the good sense to have backups on other local drives and remote services[1], but this could still be his primary store. It isn't like holding the text of books in progress is a task that needs the speediest of SSDs so if that drive just kept working why would he replace it?

[1] presumably these have also been purged if his wishes were so written or interpreted, probably by more conventional means[2]

[2] the bulldozer being used for this one drive for ceremonial purposes

[rullelito]

Yes, strange indeed, I expected Terry to only roll with the latest in tech.

[forkLding]

Terry Pratchett was one of my most favourite authors, it's rare to see someone keep building up a universe that both my elderly teachers and me as a student could appreciate during high school. Moreover, I wish there were more movie adaptations than what they have now.

Also seems so long ago, I used to play Discworld MUD and relive the stories on there as well. And now Terry has passed away (RIP, hope you're having fun with Death) and Discworld is off on its own, floating on a turtle somewhere. I have to be honest, I would read some Discworld fan fiction just to see those familiar characters again.

[jmcgough]

I respect this a lot - if he hadn't, relatives or others would eventually publish his unfinished works (either in an unfinished state or completed by another author). The money is too alluring.

[SamBam]

I'd like to imagine that the steamroller was driven by Nomes.

[robg]

To save you the click - That's what he wanted.

[paulpauper]

i'm sure it could still be recovered through forensic means from the pieces if one really wanted to

[lwhalen]

pRest pIn Peace, pTerry.

[WalterBright]

My Will specifies that my warp drive design be destroyed. Earthlings are not ready for it yet.

[WalterBright]

That does it. I'm not sharing my Hodge Conjecture solution, either!

[khazhoux]

Lest you suffer the posthumous indignity of the world discovering the designs are coded in C# ;-)

[imchillyb]

Damn those Hyperspace bypasses!

[infinite8s]

You've got the wrong author. You are thinking of Douglas Adams.