Thanks to Steve Saffel, editor, for suggesting this gig to me and very considerable help with the writing.
To the folks at Titan Books, for deciding to do a new series hewing more closely to R. E. Howard’s vision: Nick Landau, Vivian Cheung, Laura Price, Davi Lancett, Paul Simpson, and Julia Lloyd. And at Conan Properties: Fredrik Malmberg, Jay Zetterberg, Matt Murray, and Steve Booth.
And to Robert E. Howard, for coming up with Conan and the whole wild, glorious mishmash of the Hyborian Age, where I wandered as a lad and to which the genre will be eternally indebted. My first attempt at a novel, when I was thirteen, was a truly terrible Howardian pastiche. I hope decades of experience have finally made me worthy to be allowed into the master’s playpen.
To Joe’s Diner (http://joesdining.com/), Ecco Gelato & Expresso (http://www.eccogelato.com/), and Tribe’s Coffee House, (https://www.tribescoffeehouse.net/) here in Santa Fe, for putting up with my interminable presence and my habit of making faces and muttering dialogue as I write. May they survive the apocalypse and flourish once more, and aid my creativity with coffee and pastries.