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NG: What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the last thirty years in the way that the genres you’ve worked in – primarily humour, science fiction, and fantasy – are perceived and received by the world? Or has anything really changed?

TP: This is a debateable one. My perception is that these days, fantasy and science fiction are effectively mainstream. You, Neil, must surely see the same thing. When I first started touring, the people that you met were, for those of us with the right radar, typically fans. These days, my Discworld books and most of my other stuff seem to be out there for what I might call ‘the general reading public’. Certainly, when we were in Australia earlier this year, Rob and I seemed to float on the wings of fandom. Went into a shop to buy a pair of RM Williams boots, the saleslady is a fan. Went into David Jones in Sydney to buy a pair of Calvin Kleins and the first woman we met is a fan who became our personal shopper for the morning. And then so was the man on the till, and so it went on. People at airline check-in desks were fans, and on one flight, halfway through lunch, a very nice bottle of wine was put down in front of me and the attendant said, “The captain’s wife is your biggest fan.” However, there’s still an assumption that it’s all a bit nerdy; the died-in-the-wool perception of the readers of my books is that they are still that fourteen-year-old boy called Kevin. But you know, that boy has grown up and is still reading, and so are his kids.