The night was as black as the inside of a cat. It was the kind of night, you could believe, on which gods moved men as though they were pawns on the chessboard of fate. In the middle of this elemental storm a fire gleamed among the dripping furze bushes like the madness in a weasel's eye. It illuminated three hunched figures. As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: "When shall we three meet again?"
There was a pause.
Finally another voice said, in far more ordinary tones: "Well, I can do next Tuesday."
-- from Wyrd Sisters, by Terry Pratchett
British author Terry Pratchett, also known simply as "Pterry" in the world of SF/Fantasy fandom, was the most successful fantasy author since Tolkien. (Some would argue he was more successful than Tolkien.) His main claim to fame is the series of comic-fantasy novels set on the Discworld. It's hard to describe the Discworld stories, but here's an attempt: they're conventional fantasy as seen in a funhouse mirror. The Discworld itself is a gigantic flat world which rotates like a slowly spinning record. It's held up by four elephants which in turn stand on the shell of the Great Turtle A'Tuin, as he swims slowly through the cosmos. It has all the usual trappings of fantasy, but the tone varies between serious, mildly silly, very silly, and off-the-scale silly. Expecting a Discworld book to make sense is a bad mistake, in my experience. There is sense there, but it won't ever be what you expect or where you expect. Somewhere, Pratchett acquired a talent for making sense sound like nonsense and vice versa. A sentence that looks like nonsense can suddenly turn very sensible; a passage that looks perfectly ordinary can abruptly turn completely wacko.