may-akda Terry Pratchett has died and left us with some moving final tweets 

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Twitter account first hinted at the news with a tweet in all caps, which is how the author had come to characterize Death — one of his most memorable characters in his books. Sadly, a second tweet confirmed the news.

See also: \'The Colour of Magic\' and 4 more Terry Pratchett books you should read

Terry took Death’s arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.

Another linked to a formal statement about his death that announced: "It is with immeasurable sadness that we announce that author Sir Terry Pratchett has died at the age of 66."

"The world has lost one of its brightest, sharpest minds," said Larry Finlay, MD at Transworld Publishers. "In over 70 books, Terry enriched the planet like few before him. As all who read him know, Discworld was his vehicle to satirize this world: he did so brilliantly, with great skill, enormous humour and constant invention. Terry faced his Alzheimer\'s disease (an \'embuggerance\', as he called it) publicly and bravely. Over the last few years, it was his writing that sustained him. His legacy will endure for decades to come."

Terry Pratchett passed away in his home, with his cat sleeping on his bed surrounded by his family on Thursday, according to the statement.

A Just Giving page raising money for the Research Institute for the Care of Older People (RICE) has been launched in his memory. It received more than £5,000 ($7,500) within minutes of the news breaking.

Tributes are also pouring into the page. "The world will be significantly more boring without you," one reads. Another reads: "Thanks for all the giggles and all the many hours spent engrossed in your books. God bless you and your family and may you all now rest in peace."

"It’s not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing it." RIP the brilliant Terry Pratchett.

Pratchett specialised in often comic fantasy works. He has sold more than 85 million books worldwide since his first novel,

He\'s most well known for his Discworld series of books, the first of which was published in 1983. These were set on an imaginary flat disc balanced on the backs of four elephants standing on the back of a giant turtle.

A sprawling world full of witches, wizards and of course Death, they captured the imagination of millions of readers — and by the turn of the millennium, he was second only to J.K. Rowling in popularity.

He received a knighthood in 2009 for his services to literature, and made his own sword for the occasion. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer\'s disease in 2007, but continued to write, completing his last book in the summer of 2014.

Terry Pratchett sold close to 100 million books in his lifetime. pic.twitter.com/NmrP6BRngc

in 2012, he defended "assisted death" and the right to choose how and when we end our lives. He brought a "stunt Pratchett", Tony Robinson, to read the speech on his behalf. His publishers said his own death was natural and unassisted.

Fellow author and friend Neil Gaiman posted on his blog shortly after the news was announced.

"There was nobody like him," he wrote. "I was fortunate to have written a book with him, when we were younger, which taught me so much."

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