[Terry] Pratchett was pert with his detractors: "Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one." He might have said the same thing about a sense of humour, and that two-fisted partisanship, the willingness to hit back at an occasionally superior response to his work, made him kin to much of his audience, who had to defend their reading choices – especially in the 80s, before the 90s geek revolution made our obsessions cool – against charges of meaninglessness or childishness.