Herald Sun Interview- Pratchett enjoys the knight life

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The man in the Hat
Sir Terry was featured in an article by the main Melbourne newspaper, The Herald Sun, on the 9th of April

Pratchett enjoys the knight life
Blanche Clark

TERRY Pratchett, author of the Discworld fantasy series, is here for the first time in a decade.
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FANTASY satirist Sir Terry Pratchett's visit to Australia this month will be his first since 9/11. What a relief that all he has to worry about this time is Armageddon.
"We were at Ayers Rock on 9/11," Sir Terry says over the phone from his English retreat in rural Wiltshire. "However hellish it was elsewhere, it was pretty bad there because Ansett went belly-up on the same day. So we were in a hotel full of Americans panicking to get home, half of them with tickets that wouldn't get taken anywhere and no one knowing if World War III was coming out.
"And that kind of put my wife off travelling to Australia. However, we might be there in time for Armageddon."

Terry Pratchett holds his medal after he was knighted by the Queen in 2009. Picture:AP/Ian Nicholson 

Sir Terry is referring to an evangelical mob in the US who predict the end of the world starts on May 21. Sir Terry has pencilled it in his diary, along with his appearance at the Australian Discworld Convention this weekend, his booked-out Melbourne event next Tuesday and his Sydney Opera House event on April 17.
"Judgment Day - is that when we can use our own judgment? OK, and what happens if it doesn't, eh? Eh? Are they going to step down or what?" he jests.
"As you may gather, I'm not a religious man. The curious thing is it's amazing how much time you spend thinking about religion when you're not a religious person."
Yes, this is rather an odd chat. Which is what you'd expect from the author of the much-loved Discworld series, where all the fun and games with witches, wizards and what-not takes place on a flat world. That flat planet is plonked on top of four elephants that perch on the shell of a giant turtle called Great A'Tuin.
It's about 10.30am on Sir Terry's side of the world and his assistant Rob Wilkins has just delivered what Sir Terry calls a magic cup of glug. "It's a cup of coffee with a spoonful of brandy in it," Sir Terry elaborates.
His knighthood for services to literature was bestowed in 2009 and it still has novelty value. "It's useful having the title because you can use it to bully the bullies," he says. "Ever since 9/11 we've been beset by bullies. More and more people telling us what to do."
One of the more unusual titles Sir Terry once wore was Press Officer for a British electricity board, which ran four nuclear power stations, giving him a personal context for the Fukushima crisis in Japan.
"One thing we learnt was you tell the truth as soon as you can. That often helps," he says.
The tsunami tragedy deeply moved him. "It's not often I've actually burst into tears when I've looked at a television screen, and that was one occasion when there was a couple of kids going along with a cameraman looking for remnants of their house and all they found was a schoolbag and a picture of their father.
"And then we got searing image after searing image for weeks and you think, how come there's anything resembling reality left at all?"
If you think Sir Terry's mixing in a lot of serious talk with lighter stuff, well, that's the whole point of his Discworld. Like all good fantasy, he's created an imaginary world from which to reflect on the real one.
In his most recent novel I Shall Wear Midnight, teen witch Tiffany Aching deals with domestic violence, a lynch mob and many other unpleasantries all too common in contemporary society.
"It's amazing what can be stretched into Discworld," he says. "After all, Ankh-Morpork -- the biggest city in Discworld -- has a condom factory. It's very unusual to find a fantasy city with a condom factory in it. I mean, you won't find one in Middle-earth no matter how hard you look."
The next Discworld novel -- his 39th, due late this year -- will be called Snuff. A somewhat ominous title?
"It's a tobacco product!" Sir Terry says.
But could it also indicate an end to Discworld?
"No no no no no no, good heavens, no no no," he exclaims.
Which will come as a great relief to his many fans, who are likely to know he was diagnosed in 2007 with posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) -- a rare form of Alzheimer's disease. Sir Terry calls PCA his "embuggerance".
"It makes me quite incoherent and unable to talk to anyone about anything -- and unable to pronounce words like prestidigitation whatsoever," he says, pronouncing "prestidigitation" perfectly.
"I mean, PCA is a form of Alzheimer's but it's a strange one. I could probably put down this cup of coffee in this room while talking and two minutes later have no idea where I put it down, and even if I had a vague idea where I put it down I could sort of look at it without seeing it until something clicks. It's a nuisance, but compared to what it will eventually become it's pretty liveable with."
Sir Terry now writes by dictating to voice-recognition software, which hasn't been too much of a bother.
"Discworld is nothing if not conversational. I don't think it makes any kind of qualitative difference. In a way I found it quite liberating because, after all, we are chattering monkeys."