Only just now found out that Terry Pratchett has died (I was basically offline all yesterday). This is sad.
Not only was he funny and sharp as hell in his books, but he also had a message of and for humanity in every one of them. Sometimes hidden, sometimes obvious, but always there. It may have seemed weird to use the setting of dragons and wizards and a world that's on top of four elephants that's on top of a turtle swimming through space to make a commentary on our own society... But he did, and he did it better than most that used our own world as their setting. The silliness hid a compassion that is seldom matched in more "serious" books.
And the silliness also hid an anger. An anger at organised religion, an anger at greedily driven men willing to destroy everything in the name of profits, an anger at those looking for power for the sake of having power, an anger at those concealing their bigotry in "tradition" and "culture"... In short, an anger at everything that made people commit the biggest sin (and in some ways, the only true sin) there is: To think of other humans as things instead of as humans.
The only thing left to say now, is that Terry Pratchett most definitely made this world a better place to be in while he lived. And that is, ultimately, the best anyone can hope to achieve.
(And if, against all odds, anyone reading this thread has yet to discover what Discworld is truly about... Well, it's a huge series, but while it's loosely connected and preferably better to read in order, it's not necessary. And as such, if you want to read the books that best shows the anger against those things that seeks to deprive people of their humanity, then these are the three books to read: Small Gods, Night Watch, Going Postal.)
