These instructions are common among many writers I admire. Burn the papers! Smash the computer! Tear the bloody house down!
I understand that the executors of his estate had no choice but to comply and did the right thing. Probably. Then again, Max Brod was supposed to burn Kafka's papers. If he'd followed orders, we'd have lost one of the literary greats of the 20th century.
As a writer, I have a hard time understanding this impulse. Sure, there might be stuff on my hard drives I don't want executors stumbling across. But the words I've labeled so hard over, finished or not - if they can bring someone pleasure, why not let them have them?
Not to speak ill of one of my favorite writers, but these instructions seem...petty and selfish, somehow. Why not stipulate that the work could not be published under his own name? Or that it could only be used for academic purposes, stored in a library, kept under glass. I don't know. Anything but destroyed.
There's enough entropy in the universe already. A writer of Pratchett's power does much to combat that encroaching darkness. But now we've returned his data to chaos. It's a one-way transformation.
Of course, the steamroller could have said "job done" and left the drive intact. Or the executors could have made a backup copy before they destroyed the drive. I mean, even Lord Vetinari and Sam Vimes were known to resort to technicalities on occasion.
Maybe this is what happened. Maybe there's still a thumb drive or a floppy disc out there with the files still intact. I'd like to think that Sir Terry could see the humor in that.
