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This is a story about Paris, about love, and about bread.
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This story came about because we were commissioned to write another story in support of our 21st Liaden Universe® novel, Neogenesis, that story to be published to Baen.com on December 15, 2017. Because of the timing, our editor asked us to write a "seasonal" story.
This presented something of a problem, since. . .neither Liadens nor Surebleakans can possibly celebrate the US Thanksgiving, nor Christmas, Chanukah, Eid Al Adha, Kwanza, St. Lucia Day, or any of the other winter holidays celebrated on this, our non-fictional Terra.
Granted, Liadens celebrate Festival, but we suspected our editor didn't really mean for us to go there. . .and while Surebleakans might have a winter holiday, we felt it was a long shot, since their culture–before things went Horribly Wrong–was rooted in Standard Business Practice.
Then, we realized that Surebleak, having been founded as a Company Planet, would, very naturally, have a Company Picnic. And that's how "Block Party" came into being.
But! Having obliged us by arriving, the story brought with it another set of puzzles. The hero of the piece, for instance, appeared on Chairman Court in Surebleak, in the company of a gaggle of kids; they've been relocated to Surebleak by the mercs, after Liad's Low Port became a battleground following Korval's strike upon the homeworld.
The hero, Don Eyr, is waiting for the rest of his adult companions to rejoin him, including his lover, Serana Benoit. And Steve and I got to saying to ourselves, All well and good, but really, who are these people? How did Don Eyr and Serana meet? How did they become the caretakers of so many children? And these other people–where did they come from?
And that? Is why Degrees of Separation was written.
We enjoyed discovering the answers to our questions; and we hope that you will enjoy reading them.
Oh, you want to know about Paris?
Well, it's like this. . .
Sometimes, when we're brainstorming a story, we'll use a shorthand idea or word to hold the place of an idea, words, geography, or person that we haven't fully worked out yet. This is, by the way, how Plan B became part of the Liaden Universe®–it was stuck in the manuscript to hold the place of the name of Korval's real emergency plan; we always intended to go back and fix it, except–
We forgot.
Something similar happened when we were talking over Degrees. Sharon, who was describing to Steve Everything She Knew about the story, said, carelessly–and they send him to–oh, to Paris!
. . .and the writing backbrain caught "Paris"–and ran with it.
And that is why there is now a Liaden Universe® story which is, in part, set in Paris.
Or, at least, a Paris.
We hope you enjoyed the story.
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Cat Farm and Confusion Factory
January 2018