Terry Pratchett’s final Discworld novel will be published in September, his publisher has announced.
The Shepherd’s Crown will be the 41st Discworld novel and the fifth to feature the young witch Tiffany Aching, who made her debut in 2003’s The Wee Free Men.
Pratchett, who died in March from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, announced late last year that the novel was on its way, but did not live to see it published.
The first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983, propelling its author into the science fiction stratosphere. The bestselling author of the 1990s, he sold some 80m copies worldwide of his 70 books, but it was Discworld that is acknowledged as his greatest creation.
His book-signing queues were legendary, and were matched by the enormous number of fans and fellow writers who lined up to pay tribute after his death.
His friend and collaborator Neil Gaiman said: “Here’s somebody who’s fought to be taken seriously and to make people realise that you can write a serious novel, set in a fantasy context, on a flat world on the back of elephants on the back of a giant turtle floating through space and it can still be a real novel. And he’s got there.”
The novelist AS Byatt told the Guardian: “No writer in my lifetime has given me as much pleasure and happiness. He could do knockabout for schoolboys (and girls) but he was also subtle and wise and very funny in the adult world. I loved him because almost all the characters he didn’t like slowly grew more real, more interesting, more complicated perhaps to his own surprise.”
Tom Weldon, CEO of Penguin Random House, said: “It is a huge privilege to be publishing Sir Terry Pratchett’s final Discworld novel, The Shepherd’s Crown. Terry’s writing is loved and respected the world over and this publication will be an incredibly important and special event for us all at Penguin Random House, and for fans and readers everywhere.”
The novel will be published simultaneously around the world on September 10.
