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If you haven't heard of Terry Pratchett or at least seen the rows of Discworld books monstering the fantasy section of your local bookshop, then welcome to Earth.
You're unlikely to know Pratchett, who has sold about 40 million books worldwide, is heading out to Australia this weekend for the first Australian Discworld Convention.
It's also possible you're not totally au fait with the role Pratchett has played helping amateur dramatics groups save the orang-outang, or how reading Discworld books is one of life's guilty pleasures.
Read on to become enlightened.
Nullus Anxietas is the first time a Discworld convention has been held outside the UK (beating Germany by a matter of days), but it is far from Pratchett's first visit Down Under.
With a visit on average once a year over the past 18 years and even a book - The Last Continent - about the Discworld version of Australia, Pratchett says he has even considered a writing retreat Down Under.
"On one occasion when I was in Australia and I was staying up north in the Daintree, we had a lovely time at a lodge up there and I realised I'd written a third of a novel in the fortnight we were there, because I'd get up early in the morning about five or six, have a beer, and just listen to the forest waking up, which was just fantastic," he said.
"And I'd be typing away and I was in hog heaven and I thought, I might be able to make a case to my accountant if I came over here to Australia for three months a year and wrote a book, this would be a tax deduction.
"The thing was, no one could get at me, see. Out of reach of telephone calls and no email, oh it was wonderful."
Pratchett will be putting himself within grasping distance of his fans at Nullus Anxietas, where he expects Q and A sessions, a guest of honour speech and to sign "a shitload of books".
But he's quick to point out his readership extends beyond convention-goers.
"I have not the faintest idea how many readers I have but the readers on the whole, they're out there somewhere, they buy the books and enjoy them, you might see them at signing queues and things, but the fans are like the hard-core, and there's probably, I don't know, ten thousand of them," he said.
"I don't know how many of them there are in Australia. There's probably about 10,000 of them in the UK and they're just into it a lot more."
He says fans always want to know the same things.
"When is the next book coming out, what I'm planning after that, and what I'm planning after that as well," he said.
"And they like the kind of behind-the-scenes stuff. Fans like to think they know a little more than the rest of the world about what's going to be happening next.
"Of course because they're usually letter-perfect about the plots in the books, there's always questions about those. Why did I do this and why didn't I do that? It sounds horrendous but in fact it's quite pleasant."
Fantasy spoof
Discworld began as a spoof on some of the dodgier novels that washed up on Britain's shores during the tsunami of fantasy in the 1980s.
"There was a lot of it coming out and some of it was good and some of it wasn't and I thought, I could have some fun with this," he said.
"And now about 34 books on, it's kind of the fantasy mainstream and indeed sells outside the genre.
"And that was it, it just seemed like a good idea at the time and then continuing seemed a good idea at the time as well."
Pratchett recently came fifth in a poll of authors whose books are considered a "guilty pleasure".
"I'm quite happy to be a guilty pleasure. Possibly, don't let them know that it actually improves your sex life as well, they'll find that out," he said.
But he wonders why people consider feel they need to be guilty about it.
"Leaving me aside, I can't quite see why Stephen King [who topped the poll] would be a guilty pleasure," he said.
"What they mean is, the kind of books you read for fun, and I don't see much to be guilty about in that.
"But on the other hand, as an old journalist, it doesn't really worry me much why people read the books, it's the fact that they're reading them that's the important thing."
Despite writing more than 40 books, ideas have never been a problem for Pratchett. But the pressures of the "non-writing" aspects of being a writer have impacted on his output.
"Although at the moment I hope to be getting back to two [books a year], for various reasons I'm doing one a year, which seems to me to be an awfully small number to do," he said.
"The reason for this is all this running about, because I've got a Russian tour coming up, a US tour, they'd like me to do an Italian tour.
"The writer's life fills up with things that aren't writing. And you don't realise it. You go off and do these literary festivals and stuff and then suddenly you find that two months of writing time have floated away and you cannot manufacture more time to write the books in."
As well as writing and book tours, Pratchett also has been involved to varying degrees in adaptations of his books for the stage (I promise to get to how amateur dramatics helps orang-outangs soon), films, graphic novels and games.
"Recently there was a TV movie done for Sky called The Hogfather, that was a Discworld book, and that went pretty well and I had a lot of involvement with that. I have as much involvement as I can grab," he said.
"Sony have bought The Wee Free Men, one of the children's Discworld books, and Sam Raimi is going to be doing it. And I'll have some involvement with that but frankly, because it's Hollywood, the author doesn't really get his hands on the train set. You just hope you've picked the right people and it's going to work."
He says he's in a win-win situation when it comes to film adaptations.
"If they make a picture that's better than the book, that's great. If they make a picture that's as good as the book, that's great. If they make a picture that isn't as good as the book, everyone will say, well it's not as good as the book, so the book's okay," he said.
Orang-outangs
Now onto the orang-outangs. One of the most popular Discworld characters is the Librarian at the Unseen University, who was turned into an orang-outang and discovered he liked it better than being a human.
Early on in Pratchett's writing career, he decided to donate the proceeds from his appearances to the orang-outang Foundation. He is now a trustee of the group.
He also donates royalties from performances of Discworld plays, which may not sound like much but...
"Discworld plays have been performed on every continent on the planet including Antarctica, it was the guys at your base actually that put one on," Pratchett said.
"They've become immensely popular and I think that at any one time there are about 25 planned or in production somewhere in the world ... [and the orang-outang Foundation gets] a small royalty from all the groups that put on the performances.
"And so everyone's kind of happy, especially the orang-outangs, who are having a harder and harder time of it these days."
Pratchett, who has visited Borneo for a documentary about orang-outangs, says not enough is being done to help endangered species.
"And come global warming, I think they're going to be the ones, they're going to be on the losing end," he said.
"Their existence in Borneo is getting very difficult what with fires and logging and palm oil plantations, it's all very sad.
"I have to say my suspicion is in the long-term, the thing about protected species is the world in general doesn't worry too much until you're down to the last 50 or 100 or whatever and then everyone bussles about. It would be a shame if that happens to the orang-outang, but I fear it will."
By Gary Kemble.
www.abc.net.au/
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