Sir Terry Pratchett Dies at 66

Terry Pratchett, beloved creator of the Discworld series, has died at the age of 66. From The New York Times:

The cause was posterior cortical atrophy, a rare form of dementia, Suzanne Bridson, an editor at Transworld Publishers, said in an email. 

An accomplished satirist with a penchant for sending up cultural and political tomfoolery, Mr. Pratchett created wildly imaginative alternative realities to reflect on a world more familiar to readers as actual reality.

January Magazine interviewed Pratchett in 1997 and 2002.

“We use the term ‘masterpiece’ and don’t understand what it means,” Pratchett told me in 2002. “But, in the old days of the guilds you’d become an apprentice carpenter, and then you’d become a journeyman and you were not allowed to call yourself a master until you had made … something that indicated you had sufficient skill to be considered to have mastered the art. And it might be a model piece of furniture or something but it was the master piece: the piece that you made to demonstrate that you had learned your trade.”

For many who admired Pratchett’s special brand of magical realism, with his loss, the master has moved on. Good night, Sir Terry.