One of the first things I did when I joined Second Life was to look up a group for Discworld, thinking that Second Life would be an ideal venue for such a group. Alas that didn’t go very far, despite there being many fans and surnames of Weatherwax and Morpork not being uncommon.
In October 2008 Terry Pratchett visited Second Life. The visit was to promote his book of Nation, but many people wanted to talk about Discworld. A couple of Lindens sneaked in to listen to him, he arrived on stage :
TerryPratchett Morpork: Hello everybody! Sorry, I’m new at all of this kind of stuff and so can anyone tell me how to get the rocket launcher? …and I’m not really into all of this YourTube into MyFace kind of stuff!
Michaelx Beerbaum: Question is if Second life will appear in one of the books?
TerryPratchett Morpork: As far as I am concerned, my books are Second Life.
Having thought long and hard, a quiet voice piped up :
Ciaran Laval: Do you think Moist Von Lipwig would have managed the banking system better than those currently in charge?
TerryPratchett Morpork: It seems that, primitive as it is, the Discworld economy is considerably more stable than the one here. And, come to think about it, Moist’s solution to the problem was not a long way from what has been done over here…
He was talking about real world economies not Second Life. Upon hearing of Sir Terry’s death today I decided to visit a location where fans do gather, the Time and Space sim and already they have start to erect a tribute to Sir Terry Pratchett.
They are also getting plenty of visitors, whom like me, want to visit locations whereby fellow fans may be around.
Nexus Whitfield was there to greet people, although his outfit is rather odd to say the least, he was rather friendly.
The setting carries a fan based theme and is today attracting new fans. People were regularly arriving, including tourists.
Whilst I was there someone named “Twoflower” arrived, with a rather large camera, although I did not spot any luggage, it may have ran off.
SLURL To Time And Space : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Time%20and%20Space/99/101/300
Sir Terry Pratchett penned more than 70 books and his Discworld series accounts for around 40 of those books, starting back in 1983 with The Colour Of Magic and still going last year when Raising Steam was released.
Back in 2007 Sir Terry, before he was Sir Terry, announced he had “an embuggerance“, he was talking about being diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease.
One of the sad things about Twitter (and I mean this in the real sense of the word) is seeing someone’s name trending and thinking “Oh no” before you’ve clicked to see what’s going on, and as it turned out, it was definitely an “Oh no” to see Terry Pratchett and Discworld trending today.
However his family, tweeting from his account, announced the news in a rather moving fashion.
AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.
— Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob) March 12, 2015
Terry took Death’s arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night. — Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob) March 12, 2015
— Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob) March 12, 2015
The End. — Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob) March 12, 2015
RIP Sir Terry Pratchett 28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015.
Rest in Peace Sir Terry!