Pratchett.
Reading “Going postal”.
As I do, it made me wonder: How the hell does he know? And then I read he worked for CEGB. And all the pieces fell into place. He lived it.
All the shit that people do to businesses, he knew, because he saw it in postwar England. I can’t imagine how anyone could get it so right and not have lived it, and now I know he knew.
Going Postal is one of my favorites.
Via Wiki: ‘After various positions in journalism, in 1980 Pratchett became Press Officer for the Central Electricity Generating Board in an area which covered three nuclear power stations. He later joked that he had demonstrated “impeccable timing” by making this career change so soon after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania, U.S., and said he would “write a book about my experiences, if I thought anyone would believe it”.’
I think we get glimpses of that book in these two Discworld novels.
Gah, bad edit: “These two novels” includes Thief of Time.
His PR persona also has a cameo in Good Omens.
So much of the funniest material tends to be simple characterizations of our daily lives. Pratchett is a master at seeing the obvious, and making it so much clearer to we dullards who pass it by every day.
The man has a gift.