There is a deep sadness in our house as we stagger like zombies towards Christmas.

There will be no new Terry Pratchett book under the tree this year.

Or a Bryce Courtenay or a Colleen McCullough.

It’s been a bad year for losing talented, prolific writers.

But I’m particularly missing Sir Terry Pratchett, the British former journalist who created the mad-but-sane satirical universe of Discworld.

I was thinking about him after watching the TV news the other night, and wondering if all the world’s wars would end if leaders were forced to read Pratchett’s Small Gods.

Most wars are about differences in religion, or at least people using difference in religion as an excuse to steal stuff.

Most of the differences are fabricated, petty and pointless.

It is most clearly shown in the wildly complex alliances, hatred, bombings, invasions and murders in the Middle East, which – on the tellie at least – looks like madmen fighting over shattered rocks and pulverised dirt.

Good science fiction and science fantasy teaches us something about ourselves.

It’s possible to tease out concepts when you put them in an unfamiliar environment.

In Small Gods, Pratchett explores the religious power of the once Great God Om and pumps up the idea that the supernatural sphere has many, many gods, some bloated arrogant things and some not so big.

It just all depends on how many people the gods can get to believe in them.

Or to just follow them.

Like a Facebook or Twitter fanatic.

Some are mere town or households gods and make modest demands, while at the extreme end of the scale there are wispy little gods, like sniffs of smoke, who have only one or believers.

Pratchett writes of one forlorn small god who just whimpers and evaporates when his last believer dies.

Om has a big following and gets away with murder and rampant petulance until he surprisingly finds himself reincarnated as a tortoise and realises he has to start being nice to people or he’ll fade into irrelevance.

The idea is subtle and attractive.

He creates a world where gods are the creation of the minds of people.

It’s not that they’re unreal. They exist.

But only because of the collective thoughts of people.

It’s a bit like footy when you think about it.

Strong teams are the creation of a big membership.

What would our world be like if we could get – for example – the Sunnis and Shias to accept that concept?

Or the Catholics and Protestants of earlier times?

Or the (look, just fill in any two arm-wrestling religions.)

"He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at."

"Chain letters," said the Tyrant.

"The Chain Letter to the Ephebians. Forget Your Gods. Be Subjugated. Learn to Fear. Do not break the chain -- the last people who did woke up one morning to find fifty thousand armed men on their lawn."

The news makes sense after you’ve read Pratchett.