Am I the only one who thinks that was in very bad taste?

Kudos to Pratchett for responding to the reception of his last letter, which was so obviously misunderstood the first time round.
Did you see the last thread on this topic? Did you proof your own post? "Talentless pig"?

Why not? Why does he not have the right to an opinion?

The fact that so few people on the earlier thread had heard of him answers your first question.
"Talentless pig"? So talentless that he constantly tops the charts? I'm still confused about "pig".

Evidently.

Sorry, maybe I should have made my meaning clearer: He started a fight, now he got one, he has no right to complain, nor do his fans. The HP fans are merely speaking up against what they see as pretentious slander.

Well, if so few people have hear dof him, he can't be that big, can he? So full of talent no one knows who he is? Anyway, just because most people haven't read his work doesn't mean none of his critics have.

Yes, well, there are plenty of bad writers out there, and even a broken clock is right twice a day. If you allow the idiom. As you said yourself: "so few people on the earlier thread had heard of him".

You know, one thing is for sure... everyone getting on people in the other thread for "misunderstanding" the article was a tad wrong because even this guy admits that the letter was misconstruted and twisted by those who published it.

That said, I don't know why people are still being cruel to this man. I understand before...someone disses your favourite author and you feel like defending. But he's apologized and clarified everything. So why is everyone still on the attack?

Like I said guys, cool it. Please keep the discussions friendly.

And you say Pratchett was trying to start a fight? No. He didn't ask for a fight at all. He considers it a defence against the "pretentious slander" (to use your phrase) the interviewer used on the entire genre of fantasy pre-1997.
90% of them. I'm not going to pretend that Discworld is as ubiquitous as HP, because it's not, but his book sales haven't gone down.
Being talented and being a household name are not the same thing. Look at Dan Brown. He really isn't that great an author, but look at the success of The DaVinci Code.
What exactly are you trying to prove here? Do you want me to say, "Only joking, I've just been buying hundreds of copies to put them further up the charts," or pretend that the entire Terry Pratchett fan community doesn't exist? He does have a very large fanbase, so you can stop being so snide just because his books attract a different audience. Given some of the responses here, I'm VERY thankful for that.

No.
No need to type for everyone else, deary *pats your head*


No, he didn't start anything. Maybe you should have read the last thread on Pratchett, oh wait, you were probably too busy reading the posts instead of his letter. It was an attack on the magazine, not JK.

You cannot claim "so few have head of him" when you're basing everything off an HP site that contains many Under 25's (being liberal with 25, most of the ones I meet are under 19). Terry's readers aren't all reading the newest children's fantasy books, they're readers and fans of not only Adult Level Fantasy, but Satire as well.

I forget, you make it sound as if you read his books, but then you could just be trying to put me into my place.

Well, forgive me, lass, if you don't understand sarcasim or satire. *pets* it's okay that you don't. It isn't for everyone.

While I agree with what you're saying, you're being a bit condescending - although I fully accept that you didn't start that.

Obviously we know that now, but even Mr. Pratchett acknowledges that the letter looked like a bash on JKR. So everyone who thought it wasn't really wrong, because the publishers of his letter made it seem like he was bashing and he acknowledges that. So no one was wrong in thinking he was being rude despite that that wasn't his intention in the first place.

Yes, I know. I'm not always like this. But if people can't take what they dish out then they shouldn't dish it.

So am I.

Right. What you're saying is true. But really, the letter was really only misaddressed and anyone who had read both the letter and the article in question would know that.
I don't see how he was being rude in defending his genre.

No, not at all. And given that we know this now, I don't understand why people are still being rude. We really do have to give the benifit of the doubt that what he says in response to the outlash is true. We're not him. We're not in his head. So we can't possibly know if his "apology" is sincere or not, so I wish people would respect that he attempted one and leave it at that.

Ouch, why do I always pop in when things are getting nasty? Right, not picking any fights, but Tao, I don't think Pratchett was acknowledging that the letter looked like a bash on JK (it didn't look like one to me when I read it first, just on the article and the slagging of all other fantasy authors), he just acknowledged that many people seemed to take offence because of the spin the media put on it.
And I'm adding that I don't think he had anything to clarify. If we take this site as example, most people chose to take the media spin without reading the article or his letter and then give out about him as if he'd done some terrible (like murdered someone). One word: perspective...

(Really, I set out to post without causing insult, but somehow it still seems quite nasty. Ah well, take my word for it, I don't really want to insult people or cause extra anger, but I'm too lazy to rewrite this...)

Well, that's what I mean. And because of the media spin it looked like he was putting JKR down aka bashing.

Obviously everyone saw it differently. I didn't read the article, but I read the letter. I trusted that there was no media bias as I'm suppose to. And I think that's what a lot of people did, I'm sure.

That gets a lot of people into trouble. I've seen enough in this world to know that the only unbiased person..............is (by all accounts) Jesus Christ (don't argue about this here!!!!). There are people who try to be, and people who are real close, but no one's perfect. Take everything with a grain, or gallon, of salt. That's about as close as I'm going to come to calling this a............*cringe* "moral"

Lol, yes, that's the lesson that should be learned from all this! Don't trust everything you read! Especially if it's fantasy...
I'm not going to nitpick or assume what anyone else has done, but from the fact that Pratchett had to clarify his remarks makes me think that many people simply read the media articles like the bbc one, which of course only took the phrases they wanted and gave a distorted view of the letter and article. Seriously, all of you, read the Time article and instead of giving out about a brilliant author, complain about the Time writer's bashing of the entire fantasy genre outside of Hogwarts.

oh well..he sounds stuck up here,but i do like reading his stuff..so yeah. i dont like reading fantasy either..its just HP that appeals to me,cos its not much of a fantasy book,i mean sure fantasy is the background,but theres a lit of drama,romance,comedy etc in it as well..so i wouldnt clasify it as 100% fantasy

I think that that's exactly what happened. The BBC article made it look a bit nasty - it kept bringing up her birthday.

(Off topic: Ahhhh you're from Dublin! I'm in Tyrone )

Your right this man is jealous of her ability that's all!!!!!

Yeah, from the outrage shown here, I think that's what most people had a problem with, the fact it was on her birthday, but again, that was the media trying to create a scene or something, by printing the letter then and by every report stressing that. Really, I don't Pratchett should be expected to know when JK's birthday is!

(OT: Yay, I love finding other people from Ireland on sites! My family's actually from Strabane, well some of them anyway )

someone could write a fantasy book
and not like fantasy books or some might like
to write fantasy books and like it
if jk rowling doesnt like fantasy books and writes fantasy
books it isnt a big deal because she might like writing
harry potter books which is kind of a fantasy book
and some people got other opinion to that.