The series began as a continuing set of loosely connected short stories in the Black Library magazine "Inferno!" (issues 4, 8, and 30). The next short piece, entitled "Vermilion Level", was written out to novel length as "First and Only" and published as the Black Library's first original novel (the book line up until that point consisting of reprints of novels from the pre-Black Library days and anthologies of short fiction taken from "Inferno!" magazine). The original short pieces subsequently appeared as flashback-chapters in "Ghostmaker", the second book.