All the biog's and biblio's I have seen on TP's writings state that his first published work was 'The Hades Business', firstly in his school magazine 'Technical Cygnet', and then in 'Science Fantasy Magazine'. A colleague of mine, who attended the same school in High Wycombe has an original copy of the school magazine, dated December 1962, and Terry's article is entitled 'Business Rivals'. I have not read the complete 'Sci-Fi magazine' story but have seen an excert from it on a forum which is definitely not in the school magazine story. Could it be that the school only published part of the story or that it was added to and retitled before being sold ? - Does anyone know? although my colleague does not want to sell his copy of the magazine, after all he has kept it for over 46 years!, he would like to know if it is of any value?
I recall reading somewhere that the story was reworked for later publication. I am sure that plenty of Pratchett fans would pay a lot of money for the original magazine! Edited to add: Welcome to the boards!
Welcome hespian. The story you mention appears quite popular and has appeared in several other collections of Terry's short stories in a variety of languages including a German CD. Referenced from Colin Smythe's site Terry Pratchett Short Fiction and Verse Terry himself answers the question thus... * It looks like Business Rivals may have been an earlier submission to the school magazine. This would account for the differences you've already spotted. Taken from Science Fiction Weekly interviews at Science Fiction Weekly Interview As for the value, it's difficult to tell how things could go. Maybe your enquiry thread on eBay will provide a better answer.
