So I have a confession to make: I’ve never read a Terry Pratchett novel.

It’s not like I went out of my way to avoid them, it just nobody ever really pushed me and said “Jason, you really need to read this book” like they’ve done with other authors (John Steakley is one who comes to mind). So I never felt compelled to pick up a Pratchett novel. It was just one of those “things”, you know?

So when I heard that Sir Terry Pratchett died yesterday, I felt bad for his family, friends and fans. There’s always a lot of emotional investment for fans in the authors they read and the characters within and it hurts when you realize that you’ll never read about that character again (even if someone else picks up the reins, so to speak, it’s still not the same character… every author puts their own flavor and voice on characters).

I hate losing authors. This sounds strange, but it’s true. Authors create vast, entertaining worlds and stimulate the minds of readers in one way or another. So when a voice is lost, it’s hard to deal with for some of the fans. Since Terry Pratchett was freaking huge, it’s a sad day for millions of his fans all around the globe (trust me, they don’t randomly knight authors over in the U.K.).

So I guess I’ll have to start his Discworld series now. How horrible… I have to go buy some more books.

In other news…

I’m still working on Kraken Mare. I finally figured out the ending of the book (it was vexing me like crazy; the original ending was very contrived and felt like a cop out) and can now finish this damn thing. Still projected to come in at around 70,000 words, which is a short novel for me (though a bit longer than Murder World: Kaiju Dawn and is longer than the entire Kaiju Apocalypse trilogy). I’m looking forward to getting paid for this one, as well as seeing it in print.

Still chugging along on Murder World: Kaiju Dusk as well. I’ve talked to my coauthor and we’ve decided to leave the Murder World series as two books. It’s hard to top something that was awesome as Kaiju Dawn, but I think we may be able to do that in Kaiju Dusk. A lot of it rides on how well our characters adapt and adjust to the insanity that occurs in the sequel.

I’ve got three weeks to finish up the zombie apocalypse short story that I’ve outlined but haven’t written. I’m not too worried about it. I write best when a deadline is holding a gun to my head. I still haven’t titled it, though. Once I have a good title I usually can run with a short story. I know, it’s a strange way to write. It works for me, though, so I’m not going to tempt fate just yet.

Next week, fate. Next week…