As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, when I wrote A Superior Slave (GQ 0.5), it was a sort of last-minute idea that I thought might help generate interest in the main books. I had all this backstory worked out for Martin and the other slaves that really wouldn’t fit into Henry’s books, and it suddenly occurred to me other people might actually be interested. Originally, there was just going to be this single story offered from Martin’s point of view and then the four main books from Henry’s. The Martin story wasn’t meant to be 100% required reading, though obviously I did (and still do) feel that it adds to the experience of reading A Most Personal Property (GQ 1).