The novella was written by Jim Theis, a St. Louis, Missouri, science fiction fan, at age 16. The work was first published in 1970 in "OSFAN" 10, the fanzine of the Ozark Science Fiction Association. Theis was "a malaprop genius, a McGonagall of prose with an eerie gift for choosing the wrong word and then misapplying it," according to David Langford in "SFX". Many of Theis's words were also misspelled in the fanzine, which was poorly typed. Theis was not completely happy with the published version, and continued to work on the story. In an interview published in November 1970, he said: