A Slip of the Keyboard Read online

  BOOKS BY TERRY PRATCHETT

  The Discworld® Series

  THE COLOR OF MAGIC

  THE LIGHT FANTASTIC

  EQUAL RITES

  MORT

  SOURCERY

  WYRD SISTERS

  PYRAMIDS

  GUARDS! GUARDS!

  ERIC

  (illustrated by Josh Kirby)

  MOVING PICTURES

  REAPER MAN

  WITCHES ABROAD

  SMALL GODS

  LORDS AND LADIES

  MEN AT ARMS

  SOUL MUSIC

  INTERESTING TIMES

  MASKERADE

  FEET OF CLAY

  HOGFATHER

  JINGO

  THE LAST CONTINENT

  CARPE JUGULUM

  THE FIFTH ELEPHANT

  THE TRUTH

  THIEF OF TIME

  THE LAST HERO

  (illustrated by Paul Kidby)

  THE AMAZING MAURICE & HIS EDUCATED RODENTS

  (for young adults)

  NIGHT WATCH

  THE WEE FREE MEN

  (for young adults)

  MONSTROUS REGIMENT

  A HAT FULL OF SKY

  (for young adults)

  GOING POSTAL

  THUD!

  WINTERSMITH

  (for young adults)

  MAKING MONEY

  UNSEEN ACADEMICALS

  I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT

  (for young adults)

  SNUFF

  RAISING STEAM

  Other Books About Discworld

  THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD

  (with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)

  THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD II: THE GLOBE

  (with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)

  THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD III: DARWIN’S WATCH

  (with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)

  THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD IV: JUDGEMENT DAY

  (with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)

  TURTLE RECALL: THE NEW DISCWORLD COMPANION … SO FAR

  (with Stephen Briggs)

  NANNY OGG’S COOKBOOK

  (with Stephen Briggs, Tina Hannan and Paul Kidby)

  THE PRATCHETT PORTFOLIO

  (with Paul Kidby)

  THE DISCWORLD ALMANAK

  (with Bernard Pearson)

  THE UNSEEN UNIVERSITY CUT-OUT BOOK

  (with Alan Batley and Bernard Pearson)

  WHERE’S MY COW?

  (illustrated by Melvyn Grant)

  THE ART OF DISCWORLD

  (with Paul Kidby)

  THE WIT AND WISDOM OF DISCWORLD

  (compiled by Stephen Briggs)

  THE FOLKLORE OF DISCWORLD

  (with Jacqueline Simpson)

  THE WORLD OF POO

  (with the Discworld Emporium)

  THE COMPLEAT ANKH-MORPORK

  THE STREETS OF ANKH-MORPORK

  (with Stephen Briggs, painted by Stephen Player)

  THE DISCWORLD MAPP

  (with Stephen Briggs, painted by Stephen Player)

  A TOURIST GUIDE TO LANCRE: A DISCWORLD MAPP

  (with Stephen Briggs, illustrated by Paul Kidby)

  DEATH’S DOMAIN: A DISCWORLD MAPP

  (with Paul Kidby)

  Shorter Writing

  A BLINK OF THE SCREEN

  A SLIP OF THE KEYBOARD

  Non-Discworld Books

  THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUN

  STRATA

  THE UNADULTERATED CAT

  (illustrated by Gray Jolliffe)

  GOOD OMENS (with Neil Gaiman)

  THE LONG EARTH (with Stephen Baxter)

  THE LONG WAR (with Stephen Baxter)

  THE LONG MARS (with Stephen Baxter)

  Non-Discworld Novels for Younger Readers

  THE CARPET PEOPLE

  TRUCKERS

  DIGGERS

  WINGS

  ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND

  JOHNNY AND THE DEAD

  JOHNNY AND THE BOMB

  NATION

  DODGER

  Copyright © 2014 by Terry Pratchett and Lyn Pratchett

  Foreword copyright © 2014 by Neil Gaiman

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Doubleday, a division of Random House LLC, New York, a Penguin Random House company. Published in the UK by Doubleday, an imprint of Transworld Publishers, London.

  www.doubleday.com

  DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Terry Pratchett® and Discworld® are registered trademarks.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Pratchett, Terry.

  A slip of the keyboard : collected nonfiction / Terry Pratchett.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-385-53830-5 (hardcover)—ISBN 978-0-385-53833-6 (eBook)

  I. Title.

  PR6066.R34S58 2014

  824’.914—dc23 2014011949

  Jacket design by Jason Booher

  Jacket illustration by Justin Gerard

  v3.1

  You have in your hands a book of words that covers my entire career, and therefore it is only right that I should dedicate it to those delightful souls who have either collaborated or assisted me in myriad helpful ways*1 over many, many years.

  To single out and to name just a few: my esteemed publishers Colin Smythe, Larry Finlay, Marianne Velmans, Philippa Dickinson, Suzanne Bridson, Malcolm Edwards, and Patrick Janson-Smith. My wranglers of words Katrina Whone, Sue Cook, and Elizabeth Dobson. My cherished editors Simon Taylor, Di Pearson, Kirsten Armstrong, Jennifer Brehl, and Anne Hoppe. My ever-buoyant and ever-capable publicists Sally Wray and Lynsey Dalladay. Lord of the Über Fans Dr. Pat Harkin. My friends Neil Gaiman, Professor David Lloyd, and the scoundrel that is Mr. Bernard Pearson. The Managing Director of Narrativia and even bigger scoundrel Rod Brown. My partners in writing Steve Baxter, Jacqueline Simpson, Jack Cohen, Ian Stewart, and my personal cartographer/playwright/wearer of tights and Man of a Thousand Voices*2 Stephen Briggs. My artists Paul Kidby, Josh Kirby, and Stephen Player, and my enchanting enablers Sandra and Jo Kidby. Jason Anthony for Discworld Monthly, Elizabeth Alway for the Guild of Fans and Disciples, and Steve Dean for his most prestigious Wizard’s Knob. A special mention has to go to the Head of the Thieves Guild, and man-who-can, Mr. Josiah Boggis/Dave Ward.*3 And to the Queen’s Head, and their pickled eggs and most magnificent bubble and squeak. And to anyone who has ever served or survived the mayhem that is a Discworld Convention as an attendee or part of the organizing committee, especially the founder and man responsible, Paul Kruzycki. And to anyone else who has helped and not hindered me along the way, but most especially to Rob, who quietly gets on with it, and without whom …

  Thank you, one and all. Thank you.

  *1 Well, intended helpfulness and almost always with excruciating cheerfulness.

  *2 As long as they’re all Welsh.

  *3 Delete as applicable.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  Foreword by Neil Gaiman

  A Scribbling Intruder

  Thought Progress (1989)

  Palmtop (1993)

  The Choice Word (2000)

  How to Be a Professional Boxer (2005)

  Brewer’s Boy (1999)

  Paperback Writer (2003)

  Advice to Booksellers (1999)

  No Worries (1998)

  Conventional Wisdom (2011)

  Straight from the Heart, via the Groin (2004)

  Discworld Turns 21 (2004)

  Kevins (1993)

  Wyrd Ideas (1999)

  Notes from a Successful Fantasy A
uthor: Keep It Real (2007)

  Whose Fantasy Are You? (1991)

  Why Gandalf Never Married (1985)

  Roots of Fantasy (1989)

  Elves Were Bastards (1992)

  Let There Be Dragons (1993)

  Magic Kingdoms (1999)

  Cult Classic (2001)

  Neil Gaiman: Amazing Master Conjuror (2002)

  2001 Carnegie Medal Award Speech (2002)

  Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Speech for Nation (2009)

  Watching Nation (2009)

  Doctor Who? (2001)

  A Word About Hats (2001)

  A Twit and a Dreamer

  The Big Store (2002)

  Roundhead Wood, Forty Green (1996)

  A Star Pupil (2011)

  On Granny Pratchett (2004)

  Tales of Wonder and of Porn (2004)

  Letter to Vector (1963)

  Writer’s Choice (2004)

  Introduction to Roy Lewis’s The Evolution Man (1989)

  The King and I, or How the Bottom Has Dropped Out of the Wise Man Business (1970)

  Honey, These Bees Had a Heart of Gold (1976)

  That Sounds Fungi, It Must Be the Dawn Chorus (1976)

  Introduction to The Leaky Establishment by David Langford (2001)

  The Meaning of My Christmas (1997)

  Alien Christmas (1987)

  2001: The Vision and the Reality (2000)

  The God Moment (2008)

  A Genuine Absent-minded Professor (2010)

  Saturdays (2011)

  Days of Rage

  On Excellence in Schools. Education: What It Means to You (1997)

  The Orangutans Are Dying (2000)

  The NHS Is Seriously Injured (2008)

  I’m Slipping Away a Bit at a Time … and All I Can Do Is Watch It Happen (2008)

  Taxworld (2009)

  Point Me to Heaven When the Final Chapter Comes (2009)

  The Richard Dimbleby Lecture: Shaking Hands with Death (2010)

  At Last We Have Real Compassion in Assisted-Dying Guidelines (2010)

  Assisted Dying: It’s Time the Government Gave Us the Right to End Our Lives (2011)

  Death Knocked and We Let Him In (2011)

  A Week in the Death of Terry Pratchett (2011)

  And Finally …

  Terry Pratchett’s Wild Unattached Footnotes to Life (1990)

  About the Author

  Foreword

  by Neil Gaiman

  I want to tell you about my friend Terry Pratchett, and it’s not easy. I’m going to tell you something you may not know.

  Some people have encountered an affable man with a beard and a hat. They believe they have met Sir Terry Pratchett. They have not.

  Science-fiction conventions often give you someone to look after you, to make sure you get from place to place without getting lost. Some years ago I ran into someone who had once been Terry’s handler at a convention in Texas. His eyes misted over at the memory of getting Terry from his panel to the book dealers’ room and back. “What a jolly old elf Sir Terry is,” he said.

  And I thought, No. No, he’s not.

  Back in February 1991, Terry and I were on a book signing tour for Good Omens, a book we had written together. We can tell you dozens of not-only-funny-but-also-true stories about the things that happened on that tour. Terry alludes to a few of them in this book. This story is true, but it is not one of the stories we tell.

  We were in San Francisco. We had just done a stock signing in a bookshop, signing the dozen or so copies of our book they had ordered. Terry looked at the itinerary. Next stop was a radio station: we were due to have an hour-long interview on live radio. “From the address, it’s just down the street from here,” said Terry. “And we’ve got half an hour. Let’s walk it.”

  This was a long time ago, best beloved, in the days before GPS systems and mobile phones and taxi-summoning apps and suchlike useful things that would have told us in moments that, no, it would not be a few blocks to the radio station. It would be several miles, all uphill, and mostly through a park.

  We called the radio station as we went, whenever we passed a pay phone, to tell them that we knew we were now late for a live broadcast, and that we were, promise cross our sweaty hearts, walking as fast as we could.

  I would try and say cheerful, optimistic things as we walked. Terry said nothing, in a way that made it very clear that anything I could say would probably just make things worse. I did not ever say, at any point on that walk, that all of this would have been avoided if we had just got the bookshop to call us a taxi. There are things you can never unsay, that you cannot say and still remain friends, and that would have been one of them.

  We reached the radio station at the top of the hill, a very long way from anywhere, about forty minutes into our hour-long live interview. We arrived all sweaty and out of breath, and they were broadcasting the breaking news. A man had just started shooting people in a local McDonald’s, which is not the kind of thing you want to have as your lead-in when you are now meant to talk about a funny book you’ve written about the end of the world and how we’re all going to die.

  The radio people were angry with us, too, and understandably so: it’s no fun having to improvise when your guests are late. I don’t think that our fifteen minutes on the air were very funny.

  (I was later told that Terry and I had both been blacklisted by that San Franciscan radio station for several years, because leaving a show’s hosts to burble into the dead air for forty minutes is something the Powers of Radio do not easily forget or forgive.)

  Still, by the top of the hour it was all over. We went back to our hotel, and this time we took a taxi.

  Terry was silently furious: with himself, mostly, I suspect, and with the world that had not told him that the distance from the bookshop to the radio station was much farther than it had looked on our itinerary. He sat in the back of the cab beside me, white with anger, a nondirectional ball of fury. I said something hoping to placate him. Perhaps I said that, Ah well, it had all worked out in the end, and it hadn’t been the end of the world, and suggested it was time not to be angry anymore.

  Terry looked at me. He said, “Do not underestimate this anger. This anger was the engine that powered Good Omens.”

  I thought of the driven way that Terry wrote, and of the way that he drove the rest of us with him, and I knew that he was right.

  There is a fury to Terry Pratchett’s writing. It’s the fury that was the engine that powered Discworld, and you will discover it here: it’s the anger at the headmaster who would decide that six-year-old Terry Pratchett would never be smart enough for the eleven-plus, anger at pompous critics, and at those who think that serious is the opposite of funny, anger at his early American publishers who could not bring his books out successfully.

  The anger is always there, an engine that drives. By the time this book enters its final act, and Terry learns he has a rare, early-onset form of Alzheimer’s, the targets of his fury change: now he is angry with his brain and his genetics and, more than these, furious at a country that will not permit him (or others in a similarly intolerable situation) to choose the manner and the time of their passing.

  And that anger, it seems to me, is about Terry’s underlying sense of what is fair and what is not.

  It is that sense of fairness that underlies Terry’s work and his writing, and it’s what drove him from school to journalism to the press office of the South Western Electricity Board to the position of being one of the best-loved and bestselling writers in the world.

  It’s the same sense of fairness that means that in this book, sometimes in the cracks, while talking of other things, he takes time to punctiliously acknowledge his influences—Alan Coren, for example, who pioneered so many of the techniques of short humour that Terry and I have filched over the years; or the glorious overstuffed heady thing that is Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and its compiler, the Rev. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, that most serendipitous of aut
hors. Terry’s Brewer’s introduction made me smile—we would call each other up in delight whenever we discovered a book by Brewer we had not seen before (“ ’Ere! Have you already got a copy of Brewer’s A Dictionary of Miracles: Imitative, Realistic and Dogmatic?”)

  The pieces selected here cover Terry’s entire writing career, from schoolboy to Knight of the Realm of Letters, and are still of a piece. Nothing has dated, save perhaps for the references to specific items of computer hardware. (I suspect that, if he has not by now donated it to a charity or a museum, Terry could tell you exactly where his Atari Portfolio is, and just how much he paid for the handcrafted add-on memory card that took its memory up to an impossibly huge one megabyte.) The authorial voice in these essays is always Terry’s: genial, informed, sensible, dryly amused. I suppose that, if you look quickly and are not paying attention, you might, perhaps, mistake it for jolly.

  But beneath any jollity, there is a foundation of fury. Terry Pratchett is not one to go gentle into any night, good or otherwise. He will rage, as he leaves, against so many things: stupidity, injustice, human foolishness and shortsightedness, not just the dying of the light, although that’s here, too. And, hand in hand with the anger, like an angel and a demon walking hand in hand into the sunset, there is love: for human beings, in all our fallibility; for treasured objects; for stories; and ultimately and in all things, love for human dignity.

  Or to put it another way, anger is the engine that drives him, but it is the greatness of spirit that deploys that anger on the side of the angels, or better yet for all of us, the orangutans.

  Terry Pratchett is not a jolly old elf at all. Not even close. He’s so much more than that.

  As Terry walks into the darkness much too soon, I find myself raging, too: at the injustice that deprives us of—what? Another twenty or thirty books? Another shelf full of ideas and glorious phrases and old friends and new, of stories in which people do what they really do do best, which is use their heads to get themselves out of the trouble they got into by not thinking? Another book or two like this, of journalism and agitprop and even the occasional introduction? But truly, the loss of these things does not anger me as it should. It saddens me, but I, who have seen some of them being built close up, understand that any Terry Pratchett book is a small miracle, and we already have more than might be reasonable, and it does not behoove any of us to be greedy.