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Terry Pratchett takes revenge on his PC from beyond the grave

by on04 September 2017


Destroys harddrive  with a steam roller


Fantasy writer Sir Terry Pratchett has taken revenge on his computer from beyond the grave by having an antique steam roller drive over the top of its hard drive.

The writer of the Diskworld trilogy Terry Pratchett, who wrote more than 70 books, including the “Discworld” series, died at 66 in 2015.

Neil Gaiman, told The Times of London that. Pratchett had wanted “whatever he was working on at the time of his death to be taken out along with his computers, to be put in the middle of a road and for a steamroller to steamroll over them all”.

To be fair Pratchett told him he had love hate relationship with his computer having been a journalist in the days of typewriters. It was mostly hate apparently, so a steamroller seems in line with his thinking long before his death.

Gaiman said he was glad the PCs were surviving. However, Pratchett’s estate manager and close friend, Rob Wilkins, posted a picture of a hard drive and a steamroller on an official Twitter account they shared.

The press is making much of the fact that Pratchett did not want his unpublished work to fall in the wrong hands and get recycled in much the same way that Tolken or Michael Jackson or John Lennon's work did. 

"Pratchett is hardly the first author to request that his unpublished work be destroyed or hidden from public view. Franz Kafka wanted his diaries, manuscripts and letters burned. Eugene O’Neill wanted the publication and performance of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” to be delayed until 25 years after his death. Vladimir Nabokov left instructions that fragments of a manuscript be destroyed. In all of these cases, though, the requests were ignored, and the unpublished work came to light," one paper pontificated.

In Pratchett's case I think he wanted his computer to follow him into the underworld early so the bastard paid for what it did. We are surprised that only the hard drive was trashed.

The evidence of the destruction will be on view and will be displayed at an exhibit on the author’s life and work, “Terry Pratchett: HisWorld,” which opens September 16 at the Salisbury Museum in England.

 

Last modified on 04 September 2017
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