Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett published his first novel, The Carpet People, in 1971, but the turn came in 1983 with The Colour of Magic - the opening salvo of Discworld, a comic fantasy series he'd sustain at a pace of roughly two books a year for the rest of his life. The flat world and its cast of witches, watchmen, and footnotes became a genre juggernaut: 100 million copies in 43 languages, an OBE in 1998, a knighthood in 2009, and in 2001 the Carnegie Medal for The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, the first Discworld entry aimed at children. He also co-wrote Good Omens with Neil Gaiman in 1990, an apocalyptic comedy that found its own devoted following. In December 2007 he announced he had early-onset Alzheimer's; he donated substantially to research, filmed three BBC programmes about living with the disease, and kept writing. The final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, arrived in August 2015, five months after his death at 66.