Thanks
Thanks to two patient, long-suffering individuals: my beautiful monosyllable (and first reader) Ann and designer Garry Nurrish. I have, in so many ways, stolen irreplaceable time from you with this project. My appreciation of Peter Lavery, my TOR UK editor, and the entire PanMac staff is boundless—thanks for your tireless efforts, for taking chances, and for bringing a new audience to this book. Thanks also to Eric Schaller (my long-time Ambergris conspirator, whose work sparked some of these stories), John Coulthart, Scott Eagle, Dave Larsen, Mark Roberts, Wayne Edwards, Stephen Jones, Jeffrey Thomas, Michael Moorcock (for your continued generosity and untiring energy), Brian Stableford, Richard & Mardelle Kunz, Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling, Bill Babouris, Tamar Yellin, Dawn Andrews, China Miéville, Jeffrey Ford, Neil Williamson, Keith Johnston, Henry Hoegbotton, Tom Winstead, S. P. Somtow, Rhys Hughes, R. M. Berry, Scott Thomas, Robert Wexler, Forrest Aguirre, Andrew Breitenbach, and anyone I have inadvertently left out. Thanks for confirmation of encryption to Ann, Rudi Dornemann, Peggy Hailey, and Jason Erik Lundburg. Thanks to Erin Kennedy and Jason Kennedy. Thanks to my dad, Robert VanderMeer, his wife Laurence, my mom, Penelope Miller, my sister, Elizabeth, and my two brawling brothers, Francois and Nicholas. Thanks to Richard Peterson and Scott Stratton for being good sports (as well as the leaders of major cults). Finally, thanks to the Squidophiles who provided many of the entries in the King Squid bibliography and whose names, albeit in altered form, have thus become permanently embedded in the firmament of Ambergris. – J.V.
Credits
“Dradin, In Love” first appeared as a trade paperback from Buzzcity Press, 1996.
“The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris” first appeared as a chapbook from Necropolitan Press, 1999 (including portions of the Ambergris Glossary).
“The Transformation of Martin Lake” first appeared in the anthology Palace Corbie 8, 1999.
“The Strange Case of X” first appeared in the anthology White of the Moon, 1999.
“The Exchange” first appeared as a booklet from Hoegbotton & Sons. The text commenting on the Exchange is original to this edition.
“Learning to Leave the Flesh” first appeared in the U.K. magazine Dreams from the Strangers’ Café. It also appeared as a performance art piece from Russia’s Projekt Trotsky (Moscow) in 1999.
The versions set out in this collection constitute definitive revisions.
Notes
“The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris”: Some text has been adapted from material written by such ancient chroniclers and leaders as the Byzantines Michael Psellus and Theodore of the Studium; Ruskin; the Romans Eusebius and Lactantius; the Papal diplomat Liuprand; and the Venetian Doge Andrea Gritti. My thanks to David Griffin for allowing me to steal an idea from an unpublished short story for Tonsure’s final journal entry. I am also indebted to John Julius Norwich, a magnificent historian, for his style, which I have perhaps appropriated, lovingly, for this novella.
“The Transformation of Martin Lake”: Quotes attributed to “Leonard Venturi” were adapted from commentary by Lioneli Venturi in his book Chagall.
“King Squid”: The opening lines of the novella were adapted from the beginning of the Austrian writer Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando’s 1920s novel Masque of the Spirits.
“The Ambergris Glossary”: Much of the “Calabrian Calendar” entry was conceptualized by Richard Peterson. Peterson also wrote the “Richard Peterson” and “Holy Little Red Flower” entries. Scott Stratton provided invaluable support materials for the “Strattonism” entry.
For more information on the author and his books, please visit www.jeffvandermeer.com.