10. He Wrote Sci-Fi After Failing As An Astronomer
Pratchett was always a fervent campaigner for genre fiction, a writer of science fiction and fantasy himself who was reportedly infuriated whenever such works were disregarded in favour of literary novels. He believed he owed a debt to the science fiction/fantasy genre which he grew up out of, devouring books by HG Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle as a child. The interest in science fiction waned a little over the years, coming back with a vengeance with his Stephen Baxter collaborations, but it was actually those books he read as a child which put him on the path to becoming an author, rather than any fantasy tomes. The young Pratchett was a keen astronomer, owning a telescope and hoping to pursue it as a career when he was older. Unfortunately he didn't quite have the requisite mathematical skills and instead applied his interest in the cosmos to fiction; which worked out pretty well, since when he grew up he could afford to put an observatory in his garden.