I've always adored Terry Pratchett's work, and was keen to read this biography. I really enjoyed it. It's charming and well written, and does Mr Pratchett justice.

Many thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

4.5★s
“From the young boy living in a cottage with no electricity to the best-selling author living in a 500-year-old manor house with its own grounds, his approach to money never changed: ‘I’m not a rich man,’ he told The Scotsman in 2012, ‘I’m a poor man with a shitload of money.’”

The Magic of Terry Pratchett, by British journalist and author, Marc Burrows, is a fairly brief (360p) biography of a man who has brought joy to countless readers, Sir Terry Pratchett. Burrows takes the reader on a journey through Pratchett’s life: his early childhood and the sound guidance and unfailing support his parents provided, especially when his school experience was found wanting.

When Burrows describes Pratchett’s schooling during the sixties and seventies, it will likely strike a chord with many of Pratchett’s vintage, but the deficit was amply supplemented by the Beaconsfield library, where he became a volunteer to give him unlimited access to books. He boasted that at one stage he had 143 books on loan at the same time.

Burrows details Pratchett’s early career as a journalist and remarks on how this contributed to his literary skills, and his fairly short-lived position in Public Relations, which also furnished him with material for his writing: “Watching as petty bureaucracy and stubborn adherence to the rules scuppered common sense was a useful crash course in human nature.”

Pratchett’s publishing journey is analysed: from his first novel, published at the age of twenty-three, through to the final books published posthumously, Burrows comments on Pratchett’s writing style and content, and how it reflected his life. He describes the seemingly unlikely but enduring friendship with Neil Gaiman, which led to their collaboration on Good Omens, and his tight control over Discworld merchandising and adaptation to other media: stage, film, TV, games.

His unfailing connection with fans is a constant, even late in his career “His relationship with his fanbase was still that of a genre writer, and at events, including the posh parties thrown for this or that Discworld anniversary, he would always prefer to spend time chatting with fans – a number of whom he insisted should always be invited – than with press or industry types.” Examples of his “pay forward” mindset are given.

Pratchett’s handling of his diagnosis with a variant of Alzheimer’s disease is described, his determination to continue writing, and his role as ambassador for dementia conditions, as well as his strong support for “right to die” legislation. The description of his own death is likely to bring a tear to the eye and, in all, this is a book that will have readers dusting off their Terry Pratchett novels for reading/rereading.

The Magic of Terry Pratchett? Clearly, the secret to Pratchett’s success with his inventive and hugely entertaining books, apart from being endowed with a spectacular imagination, is to be a voracious reader, from an early age, and to read very widely. Working as a journalist doesn’t hurt, either, nor does being brought up by parents who instil a strong work ethic. An interesting, informative and moving read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Pen and Sword.

It is hard to believe that for being at one time ‘Britain’s biggest selling living author’, writing more than 50 books over a forty year period (depending on where you are counting from) and having many academic articles and a number of books written about his works, no one has written a biography of Sir Terry Pratchett. And after reading Marc Burrows book, that remains the case.

Don’t get me wrong, Burrows has written a good book for fans of Sir Terry; he is obviously a fan of Pratchett himself and he has put a lot of time and effort into researching his subject. But what he has written is a sketch of Pratchett’s life and an overview and review of his writings, set into a timeline of where Pratchett was living and working and what he was ‘doing’ during that time. This in itself is an admirable task, and I enjoyed the compilation and collation of the information presented in Burrow’s book and the discussion of Pratchett’s works. But as the author himself states, he never spoke with Terry Pratchett or his family or friends when writing this book and so this book feels somewhat hollow and certainly not as personal as a biography should be.

As a fan, it is always good to hear another fan’s view on a writer or artist’s work, particularly if an element of critical assessment is involved, rather than simply being a fawning work free of criticism and this book certainly has plenty of that! I disagreed many times with the author’s view and spotted a few errors which irritated me but better that than a banal trawl through Pratchett’s work.

At the end of the day this is a book written by a fan, for fellow fans, and that is okay but it is unlikely to pick up anyone with a casual or passing interest in the life of such an interesting character as Terry Pratchett. That book has yet to be written.

An excellent biography of the Discworld author by someone who isn't just a fan but a man who did excellent research. Pratchett's life is presented clearly with lots of insight into the books. I have been reading his books for close to 30m years, long before they became hugely popular in the US and the book gave me lots of great insight into the author.

Terry Pratchett is a British fantasy writer of more than 50 books and best known for the Discworld series. His book Good Omens cowritten with Neil Gaiman began as television series in 2019. Pratchett passed away from the effects of Alzheimer's disease in 2015. The book is probably best the someone who has read most of his books. I appreciate his creativity but like Douglas Adams' books the sense of humor is not to my taste.

A former local journalist who later moved into public relations, Terry Pratchett grew from being a cult comic fantasy author in the 1980s to becoming the bestselling author in the UK of all in the 1990s. Biographer Marc Burrows does an excellent job detailing the prolific Discworld and Good Omens author's busy life and extensive back catalogue, successfully emulating his literary style as he does so with numerous witty footnotes throughout. I spotted only one mistake: Pratchett never reported on the assassination of Egyptian president Nasser as this event never happened. Perhaps the author meant Sadat? At any rate, this should not detract from Burrows' achievement. Pratchett's official biography has not been written yet. Whoever writes it will have their work cut out surpassing this.

I am an unashamed Kevin, and I wear the name with pride. Those who know what this means will enjoy reading this book, those who don't need to read it.
PTerry or The Creator as he's often referred wrote the 41 book series set on the Discworld, with all its seemingly superficial nuances, yet when you look deeper there are subtexts upon subtexts.

Terry as described in this book was a man who was focused on several things, but none so important as his family, his writing was as necessary to him as breathing yet his wife Lyn and daughter Rhianna were the reason for his choosing to make it his living when he discovered he was able to.

I learned more than I had anticipated from this, and despite "knowing the ending" found myself choked and railing against the injustice of a talented writer losing those essential areas of cognitive ability to a disease so insidious.

A well written, interesting, biography. This book covers the story of Terry Pratchett’s life in a charming, conversational style. The author obviously loves the subject matter, and his enthusiasm is infectious. A really readable story, which reads like a novel.

For a subject who died in 2015—not all that long ago—it might be surprising that the first person to publish a serious exploration of Terry Pratchett would have never met him. While not a requirement, there’s a compelling argument that closeness to a subject would provide the bones for writing a rich examination of them. And yet author Marc Burrows completely dispels the idea that that’s the only way to write about recent figures. Through careful research and a deep look into Pratchett’s own words from his numerous interviews, Burrows has provided a compact but comprehensive biography that’s both a page-turner and ridiculously funny.

Even though Burrows might not have a physical connection to Pratchett, he’s an obvious fan of his work, and his excitement while discussing his books is palpable on the page. It quickly becomes clear that, though Pratchett was a remarkable author, he lived a fairly low-key life by celebrity standards. Fortunately, this is where Burrows’s enthusiasm plays its greatest strength, allowing him to add in analysis of Pratchett’s books while relating them to the points in his life that they were written. While this gets somewhat technical, Burrows has such an easy, welcoming style, that these moments are fascinating—even if the reader has little knowledge of the specific book.

Burrows also taps into less obvious sections of Pratchett’s career, and many of these anecdotes are hilarious. In particular, a section on the cover art for some of the early editions of the German Discworld novels is a fascinating examination of the publishing industry, frustrating, and funny all at the same time. Along the way, Burrows, in a nod to Pratchett’s style, tosses in copious footnotes to drive some of the jokes.*

Of course, no look at at Pratchett’s life would be complete without discussing his Alzheimer’s diagnoses and subsequent death. Much like Pratchett was able to weave darker themes into his often cheeky fantasy novels, Burrows also doesn’t shy away from the serious. He does so in such a respectful and thoughtful way that it’s impossible not to leave those final pages without having a deeper appreciation for not just Pratchett, but Burrows as well.

Ultimately, Burrows has written an emotional, charming biography of a literary giant that’ll have fans flipping through well-worn paperbacks while newcomers pick up The Colour of Magic.



*It works.

I'm huge Pratchett and was more than happy to read this biography because it help me learn more about this author and how he wrote the books I love so much.
It's a well researched and well written story that I strongly recommend to any Pratchett fan.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

To be honest the only work of Terry Pratchett that I have read is Good Omens (co-authored with Neil Gaiman), but after reading The Magic of Terry Pratchett by Marc Burrows I want to read everything and thankfully there are a lot. 
In my mind Terry Pratchett is attached to Discworld but he has written many more with many children's books among them. 

In this book Marc Burrows does a brief analysis and description of the books while giving background information on them, which is very interesting and informative at the same time. I also learned many things about his personal life that made Terry Pratchett even more interesting than before. 
The book mostly focuses on his work and his books. It is very well-written and it's an easy read. I also liked the fact  that the notes were included in the chapters and not at the back, making reading easier. 

If you are a Terry Pratchett fan you will love this biography, but even if like me you haven't read many of his work you will be fascinated by it.

<I>Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a copy in return for an honest review.</I>

This is a very well written, easy to read look at one of the greatest fantasy authors of all time. When I started this book I was a little concerned with how Burrows could write more than 200 pages about Pratchett's life because, aside from being a famous author, he had a pretty average life. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised to see that a large focus of the book is on analysis and anecdotes about his actual work. If you are familiar with the 50+ novels that Pratchett wrote over the course of his life, you will love this book. The many 4 and 5 star reviews I've seen for this book are well deserved coming from people who are Pratchett scholars. 

However, if you are not very familiar with the many characters and stories of Pratchett's bibliography, there will likely be little to enjoy here. Several passages that I found either fascinating or hilarious I read to people who have never read Pratchett before and got little to no interest in response. One person even asked me "is that the whole story?" after I read them the part about how The Luggage was created. I actually considered giving this one only three stars because it will not appeal, I think, to anyone who isn't already a huge Pratchett fan, but in the end this book is exactly what it says on the tin and so should not be downgraded because of that.

If you love <I>The Discworld</I> then I suggest picking this one up immediately. If you've never read it, I suggest <I>Mort</I> or <I>Guards! Guards</I> as your immediate next read.

My thanks to Pen & Sword/White Owl for granting my wish for a digital edition via NetGalley of ‘The Magic of Terry Pratchett: A Biography’ by Marc Burrows in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first full biography of Sir Terry Pratchett and certainly a must read for Pratchett fans and for anyone wanting a comprehensive introduction. 

Marc Burrows has done a brilliant job of bringing together archival material, interviews, and an in-depth analysis of Pratchett’s works. I was riveted from start to finish.

I had been reading Pratchett from the start of the Discworld series and they remain firm favourites. It provided me with a great deal of food for thought in terms of the changes in his writing and themes over the years. 

I also had the pleasure of meeting Terry Pratchett a number of times during the 90s-early 00s at various events and his love of SFF, generosity and kindness was always evident. He really did ‘pay it forward’.  This was an excellent tribute to the man and his work.

Following the main text there is an extensive bibliography and index. It also includes a number of archive photographs.

I expect that I will be adding its print edition to my library in due course. Highly recommended.

The Magic of Terry Pratchett is a well written and engaging biography of the inimitable and sadly missed master fantasist, written by Marc Burrows. Tentatively due out 30th July 2020 from Pen & Sword on their White Owl imprint, it's 224 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.

I was unfamiliar with the author's other work (as a comedian, writer, entertainer) (sorry!) and admit to some trepidation going in. I'm a massive fan of Pratchett's work, both the canonical Discworld series, as well as his other series and standalones and was worried that nobody could really do his biography justice. I worried needlessly, as it turned out, because this is a genuinely funny and sensitively written biography. There was quite a lot of information included with which I was previously unfamiliar, especially about Pratchett's early life and writing and career choices.

I liked and appreciated the gently humorous voice of the book, peppered with asides and footnotes of which Sir Terry would likely have approved. Burrows also points out often in the book those places where strictly factual anecdotes and retellings might be in doubt (Pratchett was renowned for self-mythologizing during his lifetime - and the stories have only grown since his passing). There are numerous photographs included and it's apparent just how much he was loved and lauded during his too-short lifetime.

I really enjoyed this biography and recommend it unreservedly to fans of Pratchett, Discworld, and his other works. It's written humorously and well in an entertaining (if not rigorously academic) style.

Five stars. Well worth a read.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

By some cruel twist of fate, Terry Pratchett wasn't my uncle*. That statement clearly shows my bias for the subject matter, so we'll move on to the book itself. Marc Burrows has managed to pack a whole (but far too short) lifetime into "The Magic of Terry Pratchett" and there were a lot of things I didn't know. Throughout reading this book, I felt a desperate pull to start re-reading the Discworld books** but I resisted. I don't think I've ever cried at a non-fiction book before*** but the end found my eyes leaking****. Marc Burrows has managed to write with a skill and humour that Sir Terry himself would be proud of, I'm sure. Absolutely wonderful. *****

*Something I will lament forever.
**Nice job, Marc!
***Who does?!
****And they're still a bit damp now.
*****Apologies for all the footnotes. Fans will understand!

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advance copy to review. This review is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

I had low expectations of this book.  The title, The Magic of Terry Pratchett, nudged me into anticipating a fan’s hagiography from which I would learn little. How wrong I was. This biography is superb. In fact, it’s better than that.

The book shows us how Terry’s youth shaped his impatience with petty authority such as school headmasters and managers. Burrows’s research is thorough and really illuminates Terry’s development as a writer. I knew about the fan letter he wrote to Tolkien, but didn’t know he’d written about Smith of Wootton Major rather than Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit. Tolkien was overjoyed to receive Terry’s letter and replied quickly, stating it was the first correspondence he’d received about that work. Nor did I know that Terry’s first story was published when he was fourteen – and he received £14 for it. Being a professional published author gave him the confidence to ignore the ignorant teachers who didn’t think he would amount to anything.

It isn’t just stuffed with anecdotes, both ones told by Terry and by people who knew him, it also contains highly perceptive comments, showing how the novels mature with Terry’s development as an author. I was pleased to see that the non-Discworld books are treated with as much respect as the canon. 

Burrows warns us to treat the anecdotes with a degree of suspicion as Terry’s journalistic instincts steered him towards polishing tales, possibly at the expense of 100% accuracy.  I met Terry a couple of times and had the privilege of buying him a drink each time. One anecdote that isn’t in the book is from the Wincanton convention that Bernard Pearson decided ought to have a cabbage theme. People were invited to make foodstuff with a cabbage twist and Pterry would judge them all – poor devil! Terry praised my wife’s cabbage cake, saying with delight, “That was actually really good cake”, but I had the impression that the cabbage beer (or was it wine?) wasn’t such a hit. I can’t remember whether that was the occasion that someone sent Terry some special brownies and Terry dutifully munched them. He told us that it wasn’t until he started hallucinating that he realised in what way they were “special”.

If you enjoy Discworld, you will learn a lot from The Magic of Terry Pratchett. I recommend it without reservation. And you’ll love that Burrows uses footnotes just as Terry did – to add excruciating puns and witty asides. One example notes the existence of a second Carpet People story from 1967, enquiring whether this makes it a carpet offcut?

I have weirdly mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it is lovely to learn more about Terry, who was a completely fascinating person. There are some great stories here that I really enjoyed.

On the other hand, it's very technical in spots. I didn't really need to know which book company bought the book company who used to publish Terry's books.  The Kidby/Kirby bits were interesting at least. I'd heard a lot of the information here in bits and pieces before, but it's nice to have it collected here in chronological order, and the pictures at the back are really interesting.

Overall it's really good and I really want to start a reread now. The only question is, which one to start with?

The Magic by Terry Pratchett by Marc Burrows succeeds as an exceptional biography of a well loved author. There's a lot of pressure on a biographer has a subject who is as well as Pratchett is. He has rabid fans, lived a charitable public life, and had a sad and frustrating death. It's hard, in light of these merits, to give an honest portrait of a human subject, but Burrows succeeds. He takes us through his subject's strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures, and never skimps on the details. I'm very satisfied with this as a fan, and I can't wait to add it to my shelf.

The Magic of Terry Pratchett is an interesting biography, especially considering that the author never met the man himself. Instead, everything is based on interviews from various people who did work with him across the years. Additionally, given that Pratchett has a very strong following, it was surprising to find that the author here is not a rabid fan. He's definitely a fan, but not so much as to be completely enamored by the subject. This leads to an almost clinical review of the life (well, mostly bibliography) of Sir Terry. Personally, I found this to be mostly a good thing. While I consider myself something of a fan (I think I've read all discworld books twice), I'm not enough of one to want to shift through the minutia of his life, or pages and pages of glorification of his works. 

The biography is laid out in clear parts: first the early history of the man, which is quite interesting and even reaches a level of narrative that seems too accurate. When Sir Terry moves on to be an established author the focus shifts more to the books themselves, publishing deals and becoming famous. The last part deals with his battle with Alzheimers which is handled with just the right amount of gravitas.

I read the whole biography in one sitting, which could be one of the first times I've done so on a non-fiction piece. I very much liked the approach the author took and almost never got bored with too much detail - yet also rarely felt that something was skimmed over. The beginning and the end of the biography are the strongest, and there is a fascinating insight into publishing in the middle. And just enough of a touch on all the best Discworld novels to bring up good memories.  Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

I enjoyed this book; who wouldn't enjoy reading about as wonderful an author as Terry Pratchett? The book gave a good deal of insight into both the man and his works, of which the Discworld books are of course the most important. If it has a flaw, it's that the book stops short of being a full biography (though I gather one is forthcoming); the author did some interviews, but much of the book is drawn from other journalistic sources, and we also don't get a full picture of the worlds Pratchett inhabited. But perhaps that's asking more of this book than it promises -- readers who are looking for a picture of the man, and some information on his works, should greatly enjoy it.