We are grateful to Robert Fri, Stephen Ansolabehere, and the staff at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for commissioning the original version of this work; to the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Western Australia where that version was first written; and to Patrick Fitzgerald, Roy Thomas, Milenda Lee, and the diligent and creative team at Columbia University Press for turning it into a book.
We also thank our agent, Ayesha Pande, without whom our work would be written but not necessarily read; Kim Stanley Robinson for inspiration; and the audience member at the Sydney Writers’ Festival who asked one of us: “Will you write fiction next?”