Why I like Terry Pratchett

I first heard of Terry Pratchett when his first Discworld novel The Colour of Magic was read out as the book of the week on Woman's Hour. This must have been in 1984. What struck me then was his beathtaking imagination. Could magic ever have a colour? If only wizzards (note deliberate mis-spelling) can see the octarine glow of magic, or taste its tinny smell in their mouths, does this make them the supreme synesthetes?

Since then, Pratchett has added regularly to the Discworld series and he's also found time to create the Digger series, known as the Bromeliad Trilogy.

One of the great attractions of Terry Pratchett's work were the covers designed by Josh Kirby. Right from the start, the Discworld books had a distinct identity that could be spotted from across a busy bookshop. Kirby's illustrations became synonymous with Pratchett's stories and I think this great partnership had a lot to do with the success of the series. Whoever set up this partnership really should be congratulated. In terms of brand identity, Kirby and Pratchett were a powerful combination and I can't think of a similar alliance that has had such an impact before or since.

It is incredible that, despite his prodigious output, Terry Pratchett is so consistent. Apart from the obvious exception of Monstrous Regiment, which seems to have been written as a protest against the Second Gulf War and has a strange obsession with cross dressing, all of his books are funny and can either be read singly or as part of an ever expanding series. It's obvious that Pratchett enjoys his work and when he does take the piss out of something it is with a great deal of affection.

His books stand being read over and over and again one of my favourites is Reaper Man, in which the character of Death does a bunk and gets a job bringing in the harvest on a farm. This book brings in some profound ideas on life and death and when I read it for the first time I was immediately struck by the philosophical arguments that it encompassed. And then there is the village blacksmith who is determined to make a reaping machine better than Death and who is just as adept an open-ended 3/8s Gripley spanner as Death is with a scythe. I think this might be the story where the Death of Rats verse makes an appearance but, throughout the disc World Series, the timeline of the narrative is somewhat confused. Not that this matters - it all adds to the fun.

Some people can't get on with Pratchett. Sometimes I find his writing little annoying. The piss taking becomes a little bit too smart arsed but these instances are rare and considering how many books he's written it's not surprising that some of his words jar a bit with some readers and occasionally with me.

Pratchett used to write in conventional chapters but nowadays he just strings as narrative along without them and the narrative is only broken up by the starting of a new line. I suspect that this is deliberate for it makes the book unputdownable and there appeared many occasions where I have bought a new Pratchett book, begun to read it and not been able to do anything else until I've finished it. Usually, I find a chapter a good place to stop, so if it doesn't have any chapters I seem to have to keep reading. A line break is simply not enough. Having been caught out like this so many times, I find it interesting that when faced with a new Pratchett work I am a little reluctant to start reading it, knowing how much it will suck me in. The knowledge that it is unputdownable makes it unpickupable, too.

When Pratchett wrote Soul Music, I was worried that perhaps he had strayed into my own territory with my, at that time, unpublished story of The Soul Trader but I was happy to discover that it didn't stray into the ideas that I wanted to explore. I was on a long residential accountancy course in Winchester at the time, living in a hotel -- or seeing as this is my literary blog, an hotel. A number of us staying there were reading this book, since it was a new Pratchett, and we would infuse to each other over breakfast about the best bits that we'd read the night before. Of course, it didn't take is too long to read our books because apart from eating, sleeping and studying, all we did was read Soul Music.

The Pratchett/Kirby partnership came to an end when Josh Kirby died in 2001 and the illustrative mantle was picked up by Paul Kidby. Hmm, Kirby/Kidby -- scope for some confusion there. Kirby was a difficult act to follow but Kidby rose to the challenge and gave Pratchett's stories are new look that was entirely in keeping with the Discworld tradition. Kidby is still young enough to have a glittering illustrating career ahead of him so the obvious thing to do is to keep him as the official Discworld artist.

Recently, though, Pratchett's publishers, Transworld, have adopted a less distinctive corporate image for the Discworld books. They no longer stand out on the shelf as they used to when proper illustrators were let loose on Pratchett's ideas. Of course, this doesn't demean the writing in any way. I suspect a new suit was appointed to the publishing house and wanted to make a mark quickly by dismissing his or her predecessors work. That's how you get on as an executive in business these days.

I just feel that it is an opportunity lost. The new book covers say nothing about what's contained within the covers.

I say fire the suit and re-instate Paul Kidby! But keep Terry Pratchett writing