Acknowledgements

 

Any created thing is many people’s work. This book owes special thanks to the following people who have contributed criticism, knowledge, and advice. The richness they have given it is theirs; the inaccuracies are wholly mine.

This book has been shaped by outstanding criticism from William Alfred and from members of the Cambridge Speculative Fiction Workshop: Alexander Jablokov, Steven Popkes, and D. Alexander Smith, who wields a fine editorial machete, as well as Jon Burrowes, Steve Caine, Geoffrey Landis, Dee Morrison Meaney, and Resa Nelson. It wouldn’t have been the same without you, friends—it wouldn’t have been.

Jane Otte, my knowledgeable and supportive agent, together with her husband and partner David Otte, have been a continuing delight to work with. Thank you both.

At Ballantine, Bob Wyatt has provided editorial help and friendship far beyond the call of duty. There are real editors; Bob Wyatt proves it. Julie Garriott line-edited the book beautifully, and her knowledge of music provided delightful details. Thanks also, Iris Bass and Jim Freed!

Special thanks to a network of readers, advisors, and friends: to Eric and Martha; Alice Wiser, Pat Rabby, for empowerment and dragons; Darcy and Brian Drayton; Margie Ploch; Lisa Raphals; Elaine Sternberg, for midnight pies; Sacha and Christine Jordis; Vincent Brome; Thomas, for bones; Terri Windling, who said the right thing at the right time; James Turner; Denise Lee; Steve Marcus; Mary Gilbert; Meridel Holland; Nancy Paisner; Betty Woodbury; “Sarah’s circle”; Aroo; and Jim Morrow.

 

• The late Carroll Williams, whose lectures long ago started me wondering “Why does it move?”, pointed me toward the best people to look at in early twentieth-century biochemistry. James Novick and Steve Popkes also gave extremely valuable suggestions.
• Dr. Kenneth P. Stuckey, director of the S. P. Hayes Reference Library at the Perkins School for the Blind, and Diane Morreo, volunteer at the Hayes Library, introduced me to “doing things blindly,” from the social history of blindness to how to organize a plate and a closet.
• Christopher Schwabacher, Marion Fremont-Smith, and David Alexander Smith (thank you again, David!) consulted on the legal aspects of Bucky’s dilemma. The way Bucky solved them is all his.
• Peter G. Dowd explained the workings of Colt percussion revolvers and shared with me some lovely anecdotes about black powder.
• Harley Holden, Director of the Harvard University Archives, and the Archives staff gave help on the calendar of 1906 Harvard. For the sake of the story I bent the chronology, for which they are not to blame.
• William Alfred, whose own writing and wise humanity are a continuing inspiration, helped me fill in the background of nineteenth-century Catholicism. Thanks also to F.P. for priestly advice on how a confessor might approach murder.
• Mary Jackson and the late Robert Lee Wolff helped point me toward the right Victorian children’s reading—I wish Robert Wolff had been here to take pleasure in this work, as I did in his. Thanks as well to Mary Wolff and Raymond and Mary Harriet Jackson, for civilized tea times in Cambridge and New York.
• The scholarly work of James Reed, Dorothy Needham, Norah Waugh, John Rowe Townsend, Keith Lucas, and Bela Siki has been particularly useful to me; Siki’s Piano Repertoire is paraphrased in Perdita’s piano-playing scenes. To understand what the ATP reaction is really about, I used Isaac Asimov’s very clear introduction, Life and Energy.
• Thanks also to the staff of Widener Library, Harvard University, the Boston Public Library, the New York Public Library, and the Brookline, Mass., Public Library, as well as to the staff of the Victorian Society.
• Richard Knight’s story owes something to that of Charley Ross, with its extraordinary epilogue over fifty years later. Five other victims of Victorian tragedies contributed their deaths: W.E.B.; W.E.B., Jr., disappeared; C.E.B. and C.E.B., Jr.; and James Cutler Doane Lawrence. S.M.B., beloved storyteller, told their histories and let the Knights be murdered in her house.
• F.S.P. lll, July 15-17, 1982, taught me all I need to know of grief and of a child’s death. Little boy, you are remembered.

 

Dear Fred, my beloved husband and partner, noodged me and got the kids to school for six months; Mariah was proud of me (as I am of her); and Justus kindly helped with occasional typing and sticky kisses.