[FourHand451]

Terry Pratchett had a plan for things he was working on at the time of his death:

> Pratchett told Neil Gaiman that anything that he had been working on at the time of his death should be destroyed by a steamroller. On 25 August 2017, his assistant Rob Wilkins fulfilled this wish by crushing Pratchett's hard drive under a steamroller at the Great Dorset Steam Fair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett#Unfinished_tex...

[glimshe]

Good call. You can hardly find cases where the heirs of great authors didn't simply leech off the estate, normally with little to no regard to artistic integrity.

[sonofhans]

Christopher Tolkien is, as always, the exception that proves this rule.

[xeonmc]

Considering that the creation process heavily involved Christopher in that their father-son story time inspired a large part of it, one could probably qualify him as a coauthor in terms of non-financial attachment to the works.

[bigiain]

And Frank Zappa's family, with the exception of his son Dweezil...

[vonjuice]

Must be a revenge for giving him that name

[bigiain]

Heh. One of Dweezils sisters is "Moon Unit"...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Zappa

(Oh, and Dweezil is the one who's trying very hard to maintain his father's legacy, the rest of the family is cashing in and selling out at every opportunity.)

[BeFlatXIII]

This could be fixed by making IP become public domain on the author's death instead of an asset to the estate. Make the heirs earn their own livings.

[Narretz]

I think that was the right call. Pratchett's works after the Alzheimer onset weren't bad by any means, but they became very formulaic and didn't have the creativity of his best books. They're not helped by Moist van Lipwig being imo his most boring protagonist.

[TillE]

I really liked the first Moist von Lipwig book. The second one is ok. The third (Raising Steam) is just...bad. It's not funny, it's not anything. You can absolutely tell that Pratchett was losing his abilities.

[djur]

To me it felt like he was hurrying to kind of tie a bow on Discworld and settle at least some of the longer-term plot threads he'd been playing with, similar to The Shepherd's Crown (which is better). The train theme of the book felt apropos, because he was loading a bunch of his characters on the express train to a reasonably happy ending.

[johncalvinyoung]

I don't love Moist the way I do Sam Vimes, but the last handful of Industrial Revolution-themed Discworld novels are among my favorites. Maybe it's because I'm a software developer who trained in economics, but the discussions of monetary systems and public policy in satire is much appreciated.

[userbinator]

...and maybe in a few centuries or perhaps even decades, we'll have someone recover something interesting from that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37857417

[msie]

That's too bad. Kinda selfish in a way.

[ghaff]

It's what's more important? Doing fan service for fans who will revere your grocery list because it brings them joy? Or leaving behind a body of work you're really proud of and is widely respected?

I make it black and white but it's not obvious to me you always want to publish things just because some people will devour them.

[jmull]

> It's what's more important? Doing fan service for fans who will revere your grocery list because it brings them joy? Or leaving behind a body of work you're really proud of and is widely respected?

Since you'll be dead and utterly unaffected either way, I'd go with pleasing the fans. Also, it's really a freebie for your legacy if it's understood that it was written under the influence of dementia and published posthumously.

On the other hand, if I thought it would be depressing or unpleasant to fans more than please them, I would want it destroyed.

But that's what I'd do. Terry Pratchett had every right to make his own decision on this. Even with dementia, that's 100% his call. (Of course, his assistant should make sure he was fairly consistent on this point, when most lucid.)

[magospietato]

I get where you're coming from in a way. But speaking personally, the idea of people peeking at my creations before I'm ready for them to is anathema. Like, some fundamental violation of the self.

[natebc]

I think it's perfectly fine for last wishes to be a little selfish.

[reedf1]

I felt a spark of rage when I read this. It's even more selfish to demand content from an artist.

[aqfamnzc]

How so?