Terry Pratchett's Discworld: a guide to our thoughts for future generations
Through his Discworld series, fantasy author Terry Pratchett broached difficult subjects and satirised truths about mankind while enriching and entertaining readers
I'm guessing that people will read Terry Pratchett for generations to come. Partly for the intrinsic value of the books - because they are so funny, so smart and so perceptive. And partly because, surprising as it may seem considering they are fantasy novels, there can be few better guides to contemporary thinking in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
"He is of course writing about us," says A.S. Byatt - a quote I keep coming back to because it gets to the heart of Pratchett's achievement.
He used fantasy to demonstrate all kinds of truths about mankind, including things that might otherwise have been impossible to say. Pratchett - who died in March aged 66 - remarked of the people of the Discworld city state Ankh-Morpork that they "tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness". It's harder to be so blunt about real British citizens. Would you feel comfortable suggesting as much about - for example - a place where lots of people vote Ukip (or whichever political party you like least)?
The Discworld, in short, is a good place to discuss difficult subjects. It allows for clarity and directness and also - because it is fantasy, and because the whole thing is being carried on the back of a giant turtle - sharp contrast.
A fine example of just how well the Discworld works as an idea machine comes in The Science of Discworld series co-written by Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. These books explore scientific ideas and tell a Discworld story in alternate chapters. The opening premise is the wizards of Unseen University have accidentally created a new universe - one, crazily, that runs on the laws of physics rather than the more usual dictates of magic and narrative.
Naturally, the wizards start to poke around in this universe, thus setting off the Big Bang and initiating a voyage of discovery through our own cosmic laws as they examine earth, or "the Roundworld", from a fresh perspective. The four books in the series have delighted and enlightened hundreds of thousands of readers (myself included) since the first one appeared in 1999.