Writing a sequel is like staring at a horizon: you have to look beyond the point at which you can see no further—the point where the first story finished, what was up ’til now “the ending”—and ask yourself, “What’s out there?” It’s a trickier question than you might think, to find a way to push past the boundaries of the first book—otherwise why do it at all?—while still staying true to the spirit of the characters and the universe. And attempting to answer a question that tricky requires a great deal of help . . . so let’s get to the thanking!
We’ll start off with the repeat customers, and neither this particular story—nor its author!—would be the same without my family: Robert, Nancy, Sean, and Summers Williams, as well as the extended Williams branches, Ken and Maxine and Steve. The same is equally true for the Barnacastle side (deep breath, there’s a lot of us): Jack, Marsha, Jeff, Jenny, Jeffrey, Johnny, Susan, James, Ryan, Riley, and Kai (welcome to the family, Kai! We’re a bunch of lunatics, but you knew that—you married one!). And as always, I’ve reserved a special place here for Daniel and Janna, not just because without them, I would have lost my mind a long time ago, but because of the work they did bringing Presley, to whom this book is dedicated, into the world. (Okay, so Janna did most of the work.)
I could also spend pages and pages thanking the friends and coworkers without whom I never would have been able to answer the question above—“What’s beyond the first one?”—but I want to thank a specific batch in particular, this time around: Joanne Howard, Kathleen Wylie, Kate Waters, Norah Madden-Lunsford, Sam Baine, Dani Mason, Maggie Jones, Kirby Quinn, and Addison Rees, otherwise known as the crew keeping the lights on at Little Professor in Homewood while I was working on Chain. Yes, guys: every single conversation we had over the course of the autumn and winter of ’17, I was building this story in the back of my head, and snatching inspiration right and left from you all to do so. All of you are in this book, in one way or another.
On the professional side, the indomitable will and good-natured advice of my agent, Chris Kepner, are absolutely what make all of this possible, and I’ll never be able to properly express how grateful I am, and continue to be, to him. It also helps to have not one, but two publishers working to make sure a rough manuscript becomes a polished novel: on the Tor end, everything starts with Devi Pillai (who endured innumerable phone calls and emails, patiently waiting for me to catch up to where she already knew this manuscript should be) aided as always by the incomparable assistance of Rachel Bass; the contributions of LJ Jackson, Liana Krissoff, and Deirdre Kovac also cannot be overstated. On the Simon & Schuster UK side, Anne Perry is the one ruling with an iron fist (that’s . . . not even remotely true; I only put it in here to make her laugh), but similarly, the talents of Harriett Collins and Richard Vlietstra help make the strange, terrifying concept of the British market an entirely welcoming place.
And last but certainly not least—Sara Glassman, always the first person to read any draft of anything I write (and the first person to get text messages that say, “What the hell is the word I’m trying to think of? Read my mind, please!”): Sara helped to shape everything about this novel, from scope to characters to narrative to setting, everything from the smallest details to the overarching themes. When I write anything, and I imagine the reaction of the reader, it’s usually Sara’s reaction I’m trying to conjure.
The larger point of all this thanking people: a book doesn’t just come from nowhere, and it certainly doesn’t come from the author alone. Without the talents, influence, and support of all the people I’ve just named (and plenty more, as well), this story never would have come into being at all—and it certainly never would have made it into bookstores and libraries (and computer banks, I suppose) across the world. I never assumed I would get to write a sequel to The Stars Now Unclaimed: the fact that so many people worked so hard to make sure that I could—and that it became the best novel it could possibly be—is something that I can never repay them for; words, for once in my life, have failed me.
So I’ll close by simply saying this:
Thank you, everyone—and thank you, reader, most of all. Thank you for reading, thank you for caring—if you made it this far, I hope Esa, Jane, and the rest mean as much to you as they do to me.
Now let’s find out what’s over the next horizon, together.
Drew Williams
November 08 2018