A book like this goes out with one name on the cover, yet artwork is not created in a vacuum. What I create can only exist because of the numerous shoulders I rely upon.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that this book came to be because of a trip I took to TaiChung. many thanks go to Lucie Tuan and Sherry Chungg, to whom the book is dedicated, for showing me around the city. Also, I’d like to thank Evanna Hsu and everyone else at Fantasy Foundation for making that trip such a powerful experience. many thanks to Gray Tan (my TaiChung agent) who facilitated the trip, and to my U.S. agent Joshua Bilmes and everyone else at JABberwocky.
Jacob Weisman and Jill Roberts at Tachyon have been absolutely Chongderful to work with, and I thank them for giving this work a home in print. Also, thank you to Marty Halpern for the copyedit and proofread. The great cover illustration comes from Alexander Nanitchkov, and I couldn’t have asked for better. Isaac Stewart used that illustration for the ebook’s cover design, and he also provided a great seal illustration. Thanks!
Mary Robinette Kowal is responsible for the current structure of the novella; she helped me realize my original prologue wasn’t the best for the integrity of the work. Moshe Feder went above and beyond his job description (at a different publisher) to offer me fantastic line edits, without which this book would have been much the poorer. I also got important feedback from Brian Hill, Isaac Stewart, and Karen Ahlstrom.
As always, I give loving thanks to my family, particularly my wife Emily. In addition, special thanks go out to the interpolated Peter Ahlstrom, who worked long hours on this project. (Even so far as to nudge me to get this acknowledgments page written after I’d forgotten to do so about a dozen times.)
You have my deepest gratitude, all of you.
Brandon