Terry Pratchett’s unpublished works destroyed by steamroller

A hard drive containing Terry Pratchett’s unpublished works has been destroyed by a steamroller, just as the late author wanted.

Following his death in 2015 after a battle with Alzheimer's, Pratchett's friend, author Neil Gaiman, told The London Times that the fantasy writer wanted "whatever he was working on at the time of his death to be taken out along with his computers, to be put in the middle of a road and for a steamroller to steamroll over them all".

Rob Wilkins, who manages the Pratchett estate, has tweeted that the unfinished books had been destroyed.

“About to fulfil my obligation to Terry SalisburyMuseum Wiltshire_flo,” he wrote on Twitter, while posting a picture of a hard drive next to a steamroller.

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He followed up with a picture of what appeared to be a broken hard drive, writing: “There goes the browsing history . . .”

Pratchett’s hard drive was steamrollered at the Great Dorset Steam Fair, by a vintage John Fowler & Co steamroller named Lord Jericho.

The object will go on display at the Salisbury Museum in September, as part of its new exhibition, Terry Pratchett: HisWorld.

The exhibition’s curator, Richard Henry, said the steamroller did not manage to crush the hard drive completely — despite weighing more than six tonnes.

“The piece of stone underneath it got completely annihilated, but the hard drive was then put in a stonecrusher,” he said, adding that it is now “a little worse for wear”.

Pratchett is thought to have left 10 unfinished novels in some form, although it is not clear which were on the drive.

Henry, a fan of the Discworld author for many years, said he did not wish to know how many books were on the drive as it could “ruin the magic”.

PA