 Lafferty did not begin writing until the 1950s, but he wrote thirty-two novels and more than two hundred short stories, most of them at least nominally science fiction.His first published story was "The Wagons" in "New Mexico Quarterly Review" in 1959.His first published science fiction story was "Day of the Glacier", in "The Original Science Fiction Stories" in 1960, and his first published novel was "Past Master" in 1968.