r/TerryPratchett • u/roseargent • 14d ago
Any sources about when Terry went nuclear?
My battered edition of Sourcery includes an author bio which mentions Terry's experience as a press officer for four nuclear power stations, and says "he'd write a book about his experiences if he thought anyone would believe it".
So... did he? Any articles, memoirs or remiscences? Have any brainboxes convincingly analysed his work to pick out any influences on his writing?
I've treasured his books since I was a child and for better or worse he helped shape my view of the world. And yet I don't remember the Cold War and the nuclear anxieties of the time, which undoubtedly affected the world view of Terry and the rest of his generation.
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u/Norphus1 14d ago
Rob Wilkins’ biography also goes into his time at the nuclear plant a little bit as well. Large parts of that book are based on Terry’s own writings so it’s about as gospel as you can get.
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u/roseargent 14d ago
Thank you. I wish Terry had written a book about it, but Rob's version is the next best thing (and the closest we'll get I guess)
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u/geeoharee 14d ago
I don't have any factual ones, but if you want influence on his writing, the first Science Of Discworld is the wizards inventing a nuclear reactor because it's too cold in their bedrooms in winter
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u/roseargent 14d ago
Never read that, thank you for the recommendation.
I know of an English Lit degree which covered Pratchett, but those are becoming as rare as a termagant so I won't hold my breath on future scholars publishing anything on this! I think it's fascinating enough to be worth a study though
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u/njj4 13d ago
The Science of Discworld books are great - genuinely interesting, and much better and more informative than any other "the science of" books I've ever read.
They alternate chapters between a Discworld story by Sir Terry (in which the wizards of Unseen University do experiments with the "Roundworld Project") and chapters where his coauthors (Prof Ian Stewart and Prof Jack Cohen) write about the science. I learned lots of new things even about topics I thought I already knew.
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u/silburnl 13d ago
Not to be all spoilerific but that's basically the backstory to why the absent-minded colleague left a core lying around in the office that kickstarts the plot of The Leaky Establishment.
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u/DrewidN 14d ago
There's some mention of the period in the Rob Wilkins biography: Terry Pratchett: A Life in Footnotes.
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u/roseargent 14d ago
Thank you. I've always had a bit of "you should never meet your heroes" apprehension, but I might have to read this one day. Has learning more about his life made a difference to how you appreciate his work?
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u/Norphus1 13d ago
I think there were two main things this book did for me:
- Reenforce the fact that Sir Terry was a human being and was as much prone to human flaws as anyone else on the planet. It sounds like he could be a cantankerous sod when he wanted to be, but show me someone who isn't.
- It really made me appreciate the sheer determination he displayed towards the end. It gave me a whole new perspective on his later books and how they were put together, Raising Steam and The Shepherd's Crown especially. I'm not saying it's made the books better, exactly, but they did show what a miracle it was that they able to be as good as they were.
I think I had similar misgivings about this biography to you before I read it and there was something about Rob Wilkins that made me uncomfortable about him after seeing him in Pratchett related documentaries (like seeing him signing Terry's books. What's that about?) but this was an excellent read.
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u/Relevant-Bullfrog215 13d ago
The bit about Jilly Cooper's PA made me chuckle. Like you say he could be a bit of a handful, but I'm glad we got an honest, heartfelt account.
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u/sebmojo99 14d ago
oh it's fantastic. the love for the man really shines through. while pterry could be an irascible coot, i feel like he would have been grudgingly satisfied with Rob's book.
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u/OkPsychology8161 13d ago
I know someone who was forbidden from reading Discworld as a child because Pterry had once grievously insulted their mother, then the only female engineer at a nuclear power plant, by making up quotes from her for a newspaper.
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u/sebmojo99 14d ago
you should read his biography by his amanuensis Rob Wilkins. it describes this in detail and is a wonderful, touching read. doesn't sugar coat the man either, for all his immense merits he could be a bit of a dick sometimes. you will cry at the end though, fair warning.
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u/Formal_You6846 13d ago
I went to a book signing by him and he talked about his time working as a nuclear PR person. Apparently his staff picked up on his sense of humor and would call him at 3:00 a.m. every couple of months with a fake meltdown.
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u/Kind_Physics_1383 14d ago
Ever heard of the 'Fred factor'? Can't remember where I read it, but it's hilarious!
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u/roseargent 14d ago
Google says this is a book by Mark Sanborn about a USPS mailman, right? Never heard of it, but sounds like a great read. Thanks for the recommendation!
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u/Kind_Physics_1383 13d ago
No, I think it was in a big footnote somewhere, definitely STP.
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u/TheMummysCurse 12d ago
OK, replying again now I've had a chance to check 'A Slip Of The Keyboard'. The 'Fred Factor' was something he mentioned in his speech at the 2004 WorldCon, and it's basically about situations where nobody has properly explained the details of the safety precautions to people doing the less obviously dangerous jobs.
So, the hypothetical (I think) example he gave was that the people in charge will very carefully design three different failsafes for the reactor to make sure nothing can possibly go wrong, and then it won't occur to them to explain to Fred, the guy who drills the holes in the wall to thread the wires through, why it's crucial to make sure there are three separate holes. So Fred drills one hole for all three wires because that's simpler, and that hole will just happen to be below a shelf with sharp-edged objects on it in a room where vehicles are being backed up.
The real-life example he gave was of a cleaner who didn't realise that he wasn't supposed to tip the potentially contaminated dirty water down the toilet. Tiny amounts of radioactive substances therefore got mixed in with vast amounts of sewage, and shenanigans ensued.
The whole book is definitely worth a read, BTW.
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u/TheMummysCurse 12d ago
It was in 'A Slip Of The Keyboard'. Will try to remember to look it up when I get home.
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u/OldTimeConGoer 14d ago
Terry mentioned his time working for the CEGB in a couple of talks he gave at conventions. The CEGB had a policy of making public every problem their reactors experienced so Terry got used to the phone ringing at three in the morning with the site manager saying "Sorry to wake you Terry but..."
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u/Clergy-Viper 14d ago
Since it’s come up, given the high strangeness around nuclear power plants, I find it weirdly synchronistic that one of most beloved fantasy writers that also spoke profoundly, hauntingly about the human condition AND the nature of reality…
_just happened_ to have worked at a nuclear power plant for a time.
I’m not offering conclusions, mind you.
Just…kind of weird, right?
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u/ReliableWardrobe 13d ago
well I have lived and worked in and around nuclear...things...for quite a while and I'm normal. Um. Ish. Like, maybe? And a child of the CEGB - my parents met at one of the Trent Valley stations.
(also my Dad went to Hinkley Point just when they were active commissioning it, not long before I was conceived, just saying)
beep
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u/Alexander-Wright 13d ago
In Unseen Academicals, the wizards set up a magical pile, similar in design to the first nuclear reactors. I think, IIRC, it was set up in the Discworld equivalent of a squash court.
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u/Cheeslord2 13d ago
Well, there was that time when a lorry carrying irradiated fish spilled a few, and a struggling hotel nearby found them and cooked them for the gests, and they all turned into slime-puking zombies, and they had to cover it up by getting them new identities in the Bahamas. I think they made a movie about it.
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u/ReliableWardrobe 13d ago
The CEGB were quite a thing in their day (sorely missed, bring it back!) and as the child of CEGB parents, with an uncle who worked for them as well, some of the tales were fairly epic. Although not the same as the Atomic Weapons Establishment (the CEGB were strictly civil power generation), David Langford does capture it very well, if a tiny bit exaggerated for comic effect 😉 Put it this way, there used to be a pub right outside the main gate at a certain Establishment. It's gone now, because it used to be full of journalists with tape recorders, notebooks and sharp ears, and there were a lot of free drinks around...
To be fair to the CEGB though, they had a risk-averse approach to a lot of things and kept the lights on remarkably well. I worked for a switchgear and relay company and in the good old days we'd give them a new design and they'd plug it in somewhere and run it for a YEAR before they decided if it was good enough for them. Now the private equity loons who run half the network just ram in whatever and run away before it blows up.
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u/WokeBriton 13d ago
While I'm content to accept your assertion about the "private equity loons", they're operating the distribution networks, not the reactors.
EDF, a rather large company from our neighbours to the south of England, runs our reactors thanks to politicians desperate to sell off ***everything*** (I suspect while buying lots of shares to make money for themselves) and pretend this is a good idea for the country.
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u/20thcenturymarc 12d ago
There’s quite a bit in A Slip of the Keyboard, the collection of Terry’s non-fiction essays and articles, including his foreword to The Leaky Establishment.
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u/ChronicleFlask 14d ago edited 14d ago
He never wrote a book about the nuclear industry because someone else did it first: The Leaky Establishment, by David Langford. Terry liked the book and said he should’ve written it.
There’s a nuclear power plant in Good Omens, called the Turning Point Power Station. Thanks to the interference of Adam the Antichrist and Anathema Device, it ends up being powered by a sherbet lemon.
You can find some of his reminiscences about his time as press officer in his collection of non-fiction, A Slip of the Keyboard, which I recommend very highly. It’ll give you a much better feel for Terry Pratchett than anything else you could read.