Ordinary? Potboilers? Somebody

(a) Hasn't read Terry Pratchett.

(b) Is too shallow to see what Terry does in his stories.

(c) Or both.

I'd put my money on (c).

Terry's stories are deep and complex. They're about things. Things like morality, reality, belief, self-perception, society, the power of stories. They're funny stories that have as much tragedy as mirth in them. They're literature, as much as the works of Mark Twain and Charles Dickens are literature.

Actually, the son of a bitch boasted that he hadn't read Pratchett.

Willful ignorance really boosts a critic's credibility.

If life is too short to waste your time reading authors less Olympian than Shakespeare, which seems to be the argument here, then it's really, really too short to waste your time writing articles about how it's a waste of time, let alone expecting anyone else to read them.

As nearly as I can figure, when anyone does anything, especially if it's for fun, there will be someone to attack it. While low status people are more likely to be attacked, high status people are hardly immune.

There are still good reasons for shoving back.

And as for the critic who wrote the piece against Pratchett and Pratchett's fans, I just read _The Shepherd's Crown_, and that critic is obviously an elf-- a narcissist who gets his power by making others feel small. Real elves are better looking, though.

In 100 years, Terry Pratchett will have joined the canon of English Literature alongside Dickens and Chaucer. The critics who didn't recognize his genius will be forgotten.