I ALWAYS SEEM to be thanking the same people in my acknowledgements, but then, it’s always the same people who help make my books happen.
First and foremost, my thanks to Sheila E. Gilbert, my Hugo Award-winning editor, for a) believing this was a story worth telling and b) helping me to tell it better than I told it in my first attempt. She has an uncanny knack for identifying both what works and what doesn’t in a book, and all of us fortunate enough to work with her admire her for her dedication, warmth, and ability.
More broadly, thanks to everyone at DAW Books for all their hard work and mad publishing skillz. I still have to pinch myself sometimes to be sure I’m not dreaming that I’m being published by the same house whose yellow-spined paperbacks, once upon a time, were a guarantee to me of a story worth reading. I couldn’t be happier to be part of the aptly named DAW family.
Thanks to my agent, Ethan Ellenberg, for all of his excellent suggestions and support.
And, as always, thanks to my amazing wife, Margaret Anne Hodges, P.Eng., and astonishing daughter, Alice, for putting up with a husband and father who lives a bit more inside his own head sometimes than he does in the real world.
Finally, a shout-out to Shadowpaw, the Siberian cat (also a part of the DAW family—Betsy Wollheim picked him out for us and owns his Uncle Roscoe!) for not making a habit of lying on my lap when I’m trying to work.
Not much, anyway.
Edward Willett
Regina, Saskatchewan