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Terry Pratchett's Hard Drive Destroyed By Steamroller (nytimes.com)
WheezyJoe writes: In accordance with his wishes, a hard drive formerly belonging to author Terry Pratchett has been crushed by steamroller. According to friend and fellow author Neil Gaiman, Pratchett (who died at 66 in 2015) wanted "whatever he was working on at the time of his death to be taken out along with his computers, to be put in the middle of a road and for a steamroller to steamroll over them all."
According to the article, on August 25, two years after the author's passing, Mr. Pratchett's estate manager and close friend, Rob Wilkins, posted a picture of a hard drive and a steamroller on an official Twitter account they shared. The pictures posted suggest the steamroller was one powered by actual steam.
Minutes later they tweeted a photo of the crushed hard drive -- which will soon be displayed at the Salisbury Museum in England as part of their new exhibit on the life and work of Terry Pratchett.
According to the article, on August 25, two years after the author's passing, Mr. Pratchett's estate manager and close friend, Rob Wilkins, posted a picture of a hard drive and a steamroller on an official Twitter account they shared. The pictures posted suggest the steamroller was one powered by actual steam.
Minutes later they tweeted a photo of the crushed hard drive -- which will soon be displayed at the Salisbury Museum in England as part of their new exhibit on the life and work of Terry Pratchett.
Seriously, is that an PATA IDE drive? I believe it is. I thought Terry Pratchett was really into computers...and that leaves me with two questions: What the hell kind of computer was he using that had an IDE drive, and considering how slow IDE drives are, what the hell is GRR Martin using-chisels and stone tablets?
I met him at a games conference in 1990/1991? in Dublin.
Wonderful man. Got drunk with us. Laughed his ass off.
The books started off as whimsical, then turned profound, without pomposity.
When I think of the death of Granny Weatherwax, and the ribbon tied to the tree, as guide to where she should be buried, ...
written by a man who knew his time grew close
These things we choose. Frost to flame.
Adieu, Terry.
fermion stated:,/p>
Some writers like Heinlein were probably ok with work being published posthumously. He was well known to believe that he wrote for a paycheck, and everything he wrote was to published. He supposedly said the day that his publisher rejected a work was the day he would walk across the street to another publisher.
For those who are more selective, destruction is the best option.
Actually, the day his publisher rejected a book WAS the day he "walked across the street" to another publisher, never to return.
In 1959, Charles Scribner's Sons rejected Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers as "too mature and too controversial" for their juvenile imprint. Heinlein immediately ended his exclusive contract with the firm and his agent was quickly able to strike a deal with Putnam's to publish the book, instead. Starship Troopers marked the beginning of his polemical middle period as a novelist, a trend which I tend to think was at least in part due to his "liberation" from the stuffy confines of Scribner's editorial policies.
I've always been grateful that I got to meet the man in person at Octocon II in Santa Rosa in 1977. He'd been a hero of mine since I was 7 years old - and, in person, he did not disappoint. It just so happened that I was assigned to work security at the door, while RAH and Theodore Sturgeon spent all day signing autographs at a table in the back of the bloodmobile that he (or, more likely, his wife Virginia) had talked the 'con's organizers into welcoming. Despite the long hours and the repetitive nature of his self-assigned task, he was unfailingly courteous to the stream of blood doners who waited with sometimes-voluminous stacks of books in hand for their chance at his signature.
The only exception was a hippie type who wandered into the coach after the blood collection was done for the day and, practically wagging his non-existent tail, requested an autograph. When the author asked him if he'd donated blood, he said "No.". Heinlein then inquired, "I take it they wouldn't allow you to donate?" The guy shook his head and replied, "Nah. I don't believe in that stuff." The great man tossed his unsigned book back across the table, looked him dead in the eye, and said, in a voice as cold as liquid helium, "You, sir, are unwelcome here. Leave. Now."
Which he did, figurative tail between his legs.
That was my only personal experience with Heinlein, but it sure left a lasting impression ...
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