Trivia / The Shepherd's Crown

• Died During Production: Terry Pratchett passed away five months before the novel's release. According to the afterword, The Shepherd's Crown was "not as finished as [Terry] would have liked when he died."
• Reality Subtext: Terry's imminent death can be read into a lot of the story, from Granny Weatherwax's death, to her final talk with Death, to the reassurances that she still exists in the world, to the subplot that the world will keep working after she is gone, to the subplot about the group of elderly men who still want to feel useful, to Nanny Ogg forgetting things, like when she knocks over a treasured knickknack and doesn't even notice—this sort of thing is actually a symptom of exactly the sort of Alzheimer's Pratchett was suffering from.
  Second line of the first chapter: High on the downs, above her parents' farm, Tiffany Aching felt as though she could see to the end of the world.
• What Could Have Been: The afterword briefly mentions some ideas for books that Terry Pratchett was bouncing around in his head, but was not able to write. He apparently had all of his notes and incomplete works destroyed upon his death too, so this is literally all we'll ever know about them.
  • Neil Gaiman revealed that Terry Pratchett planned for Granny Weatherwax to move her spirit to You's body soon after her death, and to only get out of it and agree to follow Death at the end of the book, leaving this world on her own accord and time. While never written, this subplot is still referred in the story and explains some strange moments in the book (such as the Elf King's horror at seeing Granny's cat in his domain).