[Warning: full article contains spoilers. -egg]

Something I came to love about Pratchett was his inability to go on disliking either a character or a race. In his early novels vampires are disgusting and nasty. But then he gets interested in them, he lets them cautiously in as Captain Vimes lets them reluctantly into the Ankh-Morpork Watch, he allows them a black ribbon of temperance (eschewing human blood) and we come to love them – or some of them. Goblins in early stories are conveniently unpleasant creatures, but then Pratchett and his characters start to like them, and the hidden music they turn out to have, and they become, despite their persisting stink, part of Ankh-Morpork society.

The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett review – the much-loved author’s last Discworld novel