Congratulations! You’ve reached the end of the book. That was some adventure we all went on, wasn’t it? And what do you get for the time you invested in three hundred pages of 1980’s video game references and general perversion? An acknowledgment section! I know—it’s a little anti-climactic. If you want to close the book now, I won’t hold it against you. I’m just grateful you stuck with it till the end, and I hope you enjoyed it. But, for those of you who are ready to be finished with it, I’ll give you a couple of seconds to close the book, take out your bookmark, and put it in the book you’re going to read next. Go ahead. I’ll wait till you’re done.

For those of you who stuck around, I hope you’ll find this interesting.

First: I want to acknowledge the origins of Cape Canaveral. Cape Canaveral is based on—in case you couldn’t guess—Star Trek. When I was five or six, growing up in Stafford, Kansas, PBS started airing Star Trek: TOS. I would come home from school and watch Star Trek, followed by Doctor Who (when I was younger, I had curly hair like Tom Baker). I loved these shows. (I’m going to be honest with you: I’m not one of those superfans who has tons of collectibles or dresses up like characters, although Tom Baker’s Doctor is the reason why I wore a scarf to school in first grade; but like a lot of people, these shows resonated with me.) The humanist themes of Star Trek, the use of intelligence to solve problems, without question shaped who I am today. I honestly don’t think a show or movie could be made today if its theme was people working together for the betterment of humanity. No network or streaming service would show it. Yet, this theme is one of the reasons why Star Trek has had such a massive impact on our culture. And it was an inspiration when I wrote all the Cape Canaveral backstory tangents.

The other inspiration was the lesser known, but also incredible, Space: 1999. Sometime around 1985, give or take a couple of years, the local PBS made a significant change to their Saturday afternoon programming. They started broadcasting science fiction TV shows that had originally aired in the 1970s. Because of this, I loved Saturdays. I’d spend all day in the basement watching old sci-fi shows. And Space: 1999 was one of them. It only lasted two seasons. Of the reruns, I only saw a handful of episodes, but its premise—a nuclear waste disposal facility exploding and knocking the moon out of orbit and sending it zooming through the cosmos—really stuck with me. When I was in grade school, I’d look up at night and wonder what the sky would look like without the moon. Ah, to be a kid!

So, that’s my first acknowledgement: This book would not be possible without the indelible influence of Star Trek and Space: 1999. (Aren’t you glad you stuck around?)

Second: Every book needs feedback, whether that be beta readers, sensitivity readers, or freelance editors. Jerry Givens, Ryan Douglass, and Drollene Brown gave me great notes on the book.

Third: I have to thank my brother, Dan Adams, for coming up with the name Lil’ Froat$. You would not believe how hard it is to come up with an original MC name that’s timely and funny. It was crazy. Every name we tried, someone was already using it. I’m serious. Search Lil’ and then whatever name you can think of. Use your name. Try it. I guarantee someone’s already using it. But Dan came up with a winner. So, thanks Dan.

Fourth: You’ve got to thank your publisher. I want to thank Vern and Joni Firestone for taking a chance on an unconventional book. Thanks to my editor, Chelsea Cambeis, for wading through my tangential mess and finding a story. Thanks to everyone else at BHC Press who played a part in getting this book out. And special thanks to Tim Evans for taking that dope picture of me.

Fifth: Family stuff. I’m just going to list some names here. They’re probably not going to mean anything to you, unless you’re one of the people mentioned, but here we go. Larry and Donna Adams, Dan Adams (I know I thanked him once already, but he’s my brother: he gets mentioned twice), and the extended Adams family. Shelby Malvoso, Frank and Sharon Malvoso, and the extended Malvoso family. That was a pretty small list. Let’s see if I can do better on the next round.

Sixth: Most importantly, I want to thank you, the amazing person who’s reading this book. Thank you so much for reading it! I hope you enjoyed the characters, the world, the craziness. I hope it provided you with a nice distraction from the real world. Most importantly, I hope you had fun. I had fun writing it. And if you know anyone who read it but ducked out before the acknowledgments, can you thank them for me? I’d really appreciate it.