A large book owes many debts. Thanks most of all to Christine, my love, and to Philip Freeman, to whom this book owes its theogeology and much else besides. Thanks to White Dwarf Books and to Sean Russell, chief among the many writers whose generosity and support has meant much to me. To this day I am amazed by my agent, Martha Millard, and my editor, Susan Allison, who cope so gracefully with my frustrating tendency to turn in books utterly unlike one another. Lastly, I want to acknowledge a debt that can never be paid to J. R. R. Tolkien. He might not have liked this book, but neither it nor my career would have happened without him.