ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

While we would love to claim that a book bursts forth fully grown from our heads like Zeus birthing Athena, it’s a gross oversight to pretend that no one else had a hand in it. I’m very grateful to the crew at Ace, mainly my infinitely patient editor, Anne Sowards.

My fantastic agent Seth Fishman picked me up when I was a bit adrift and helped keep me sane and focused through the final drafts of this book. Thanks also to Mary Robinette Kowal, steel goddess of kindhearted patience, for everything she has ever done for me and for SFF at large.

I want to thank the guys from clipping., Jonathan Snipes, William Hutson, and Daveed Diggs, for the use of their songs to reference in this book, but also for creating the album Splendor & Misery. Any fan of that album should be able to see its influence on this book.

I want to emphasize that the pandemic fell in the middle of writing this book, and it was a challenge to keep going sometimes. We clung to whatever rafts of escapism and entertainment that we could during that time, and two of the rafts that got me through that year were the game Blaseball (from the Game Band studio) and the band the garages, who make music inspired by the game. Thanks specifically to band members rain and Mother Love Blone (Max Cohen) for letting me use one of my favorite songs in this book. R.I.V.

During the writing of this book, I took space advice from Dr. Pamela Gay; hand injury advice from Misty, Rory, Colton, and Sara from North Carolina Center for Physical Therapy; bacteria advice from Dr. John Cmar; gold smelting advice from artisan Kim Crist; army advice from Kim Rieck and Chris Lindsey; and violin and Ben Franklin weirdo quartet history and advice from Kyle VanArsdelan. I was unable to fit Tartini and his deal with the devil into this book, but I’ll try again in the future.

The community built from my podcast and streaming audiences have all been supportive and amazing, some lending their names to dead bodies via our Discord channel and on the livestream. Thank you, Fabulists!

Authors can’t survive in a vacuum. Thanks to Richard Dansky, Alasdair Stuart, Kellan Szpara, Cory Doctorow, and Jim Kelly, and thanks forever to the secret cabal of space drunks. I couldn’t do it without you.

Thanks to my parental units, Donna Smith and Will Lafferty, for supporting my interest in writing for so many years. And thanks to my family, Jim and Fiona, for being my rock, my anchor, my peace.

Lastly, the book would not exist without Jennifer Udden and Rebecca Brewer. Thank you both so much for everything you taught me and the chances you took on me.