...for the first time Rincewind saw the troll. It wasn’t half so bad as he had imagined. Umm, said his imagination after a while. It wasn’t that the troll was horrifying. Instead of the rotting, betentacled monstrosity he had been expecting Rincewind found himself looking at a rather squat but not particularly ugly old man who would quite easily have passed for normal on any city street, always provided that other people on the street were used to seeing old men who were apparently composed of water and very little else. It was as if the ocean had decided to create life without going through all that tedious business of evolution, and had simply formed a part of itself into a biped and sent it walking squishily up the beach. (…) How does he hold himself together, his mind screamed at him. Why doesn’t he spill?

His family moved to Bridgwater Somerset briefly in 1957 following which he passed his eleven plus exam in 1959 earning him a place in John Hampden Grammar School. He was made an adjunct Professor in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin in 2010 with a role in postgraduate education in creative writing and popular literature. Pratchett's first novel The Carpet People was publiTerry Pratchettd in 1971 and since his first Discworld novel (The Colour of Magic) was publiTerry Pratchettd in 1983 he has written two books a year on average.

His latest Discworld book Snuff was at the time of its release the third-fastest-selling hardback adult-audience novel since records began in the United Kingdom selling 55000 copies in the first three days. Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett OBE (born 28 April 1948) is an English author of fantasy novels especially comical works. In December 2007 Pratchett announced that he was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's disease.