Terry Pratchett has no sense of humour, and he doesn't love books.

Yeah, I know. That just sounds wrong, right? He's a comic author, after all. I used to think that too. Bear with me - all will become clear.

Last year Terry Pratchett came to Sydney. He did a booksigning at Galaxy, and I naturally enough went along. I'd been to a signing of his about a year prior, at the same place, and had found myself at the very end of the line - several hours. This time I got there earlier, and so only had to spend about forty minutes in line - sadly between a Dungeons and Dragons player, and a guy who offered to let me stand under his umbrella, so long as I listened to his ideas for a screenplay of Wyrd Sisters. I politely failed to mention that there's already a screenplay of Wyrd Sisters. The guy behind him was a god-squadder that used to try to talk to me in physics class. It was all slightly painful.

As an impoverished student, I don't have the disposable income (or the bookshelf space) to be the kind of bibliophile I would sincerely like to be (to wit, a completely unrestrained one); however, this hasn't stopped me from building up a fairly respectable collection of 1960s pulp sci-fi compilations, classic literature, heavy gender studies theory, and of course Terry Pratchett novels. The latter are mostly in paperback, and universally well-loved and -read - with the result that they look well-loved and -read. For this signing, I selected the three novels most easily to hand. One was a hardback edition of Night Watch which I had only recently splashed out on. The other two were second-hand paperbacks, the names of which currently elude me. This is relevant.

When I reached the front of the line, I had done the thoughtful thing and opened the books to the title pages, ready to be signed. I handed them to him in a pile, with the hardback on top. He put the bottom two aside, and placed the hardback in front of him.

He looked at the book, made some inane and clearly habitual comment thanking me for coming, and asked me what my name was.

'Beck,' I said. 'B - E - C - K.'

He scrawled on the book. Then he looked over at the other two, and he looked up at me.

'Well,' he said. 'These others aren't in very good condition, are they?'

My jaw literally dropped. Good condition? There's no such thing as a paperback in good condition. Nine times out of ten the spine'll be cracked before you even get it home, just from people looking at it in the store. I was struck dumb.

Then it clicked. Terry Pratchett just made a snide comment to me. Nobody makes snide comments to me. This cannot be stood for, even if I am significantly cowed by being in the presence of my hero.

So I gathered my wits, fixed the man with a steely gaze, and opened my mouth - still not sure what I was going to say to him, but hoping I wasn't about to embarrass myself.

And I said to him, 'I believe some people refer to that condition as well-loved.'

The chick in charge of the bookstore laughed. Some guy browsing the shelves nearby laughed. Mr. Wyrd Sisters behind me laughed.

And Terry Pratchett glared at me, and he said, 'You know I can't personalise all of these.'

Five minutes later, I walked out of the store with glee, clutching one personalised hardback and two grudgingly autographed paperbacks under one arm, and very happily texting everyone I knew about how Terry Pratchett was rude to me, and how I stood up to him.

It was my favourite story for several weeks, but gradually slipped off the radar as I ran out of new people to tell the story to. Until now.

I just went to bed with that personalised hardback, and about six pages in it occurred to me that there was something wrong with the personalisation on the front page. I flipped back.

Terry Pratchett, in his haste to belittle my well-loved paperbacks, had neglected to actually sign the hardback. There's my name - happily not misspelt, as I have come to expect - and a formulaic inscription, and that's it. No initials, no meaningless concluding scrawl, nothing.

It seems that Terry Pratchett doesn't even love books that are in good condition. Fucker.