necessary mathematical skills. He developed an interest in science fiction and attended science fiction conventions from about 1963–1964, but stopped a few years later when he got his first job as a trainee journalist at the local paper. His early reading included the works of H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, and "every book you really ought to read", which he later regarded as "getting an education". Pratchett published his first short story, "Business Rivals", in the High Wycombe Technical School magazine in 1962. It is the tale of a man named Crucible who finds the Devil in his flat in a cloud of sulphurous smoke. "The Hades Business", which was published in the school magazine when he was 13, was published commercially when he was 15. Pratchett earned five O-levels and started A-level courses in Art, English and History. His initial career choice was journalism and he left school at 17, in 1965, to start an apprenticeship with Arthur Church, the editor of the Bucks Free Press. In this position he wrote, among other things, over 80 stories for the Children's Circle section under the name Uncle Jim. Two of the stories contain characters found in his novel The Carpet People (1971). While on day release from his apprenticeship, Pratchett finished his A-Level in English and took the National Council for the Training of Journalists proficiency course. Career In 1968, Pratchett interviewed Peter Bander van Duren, co-director of a small publishing company, Colin Smythe Ltd. Pratchett mentioned he had written a manuscript, The Carpet People. Colin Smythe Ltd published the book in 1971, with illustrations by Pratchett. It received strong, although few, reviews and was followed by the science fiction novels The Dark Side of the Sun (10 May 1976) and Strata (15 June 1981). In the 1970s and 1980s, Pratchett published stories in a regional newspaper under the pseudonym Patrick Kearns. After various positions in journalism, in 1980 Pratchett became Press Officer for the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) in an area that covered four nuclear power stations. He later joked that he had demonstrated "impeccable timing" by making this career change so soon after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania, US, and said he would "write a book about my experiences, if I thought anyone would believe it". The first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in hardback by Colin Smythe Ltd in