Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The creation of any book takes significant time, but the origin of Barsk goes back almost thirty years. This pretty much guarantees that I will forget to express my appreciation to one or more people who helped to make this book possible, so the first acknowledgment has to be both generic and anonymous. I know you remember who you are and what you did and why I am grateful, and I trust you will vigorously remind me of this when next we meet.

All of this began with a random comment made to a student at New College during the fall semester of 1987, my first term as a college professor. The ink was still wet on my doctorate, and I was living on campus in the dorms. The student, Watts Martin, was editor of Mythagoras, a magazine of anthropomorphic fiction and artwork. I wrote two chapters for him, and the rainy world of the Fant was born. Thanks, Watts.

I wasn’t a good enough writer to actually craft the book that I wanted to write (though I tried). Eventually, I set it a drawer pending the day when I had the necessary skills. Years passed, and in 2010 I climbed the mountain and attended Walter Jon Williams’s Taos Toolbox, where he and Nancy Kress generously showed me many things I didn’t know that I didn’t know. Anything compelling in this novel’s plotting or clever in its clarity of language stems from their instruction. I am forever in their debt.

When the book sold (on the strength of an outline and sample chapters), I went in search of an agent, which led me to John Silbersack, whose experience and vision will surely be shaping my career for years to come. Thank you, John.

At that point I had to finish the book. I brought in a group of friends and colleagues who helped me to “break” the novel. This involved the death of some characters, the creation of new characters, wild changes to arcs and subplots, and all five of Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief. It was both intense and essential, and Tim W. Burke, Oz Drummond, Greg Frost, Catherine M. Petrini, and Fran Wilde have my infinite appreciation for their generosity of time, spirit, and insight. Oz and Fran, it should be noted, showed up in custom-made T-shirts proclaiming “WTF Otters?” a truly perplexing display of love that I will never forget.

I also benefited from the patient critique of my long-suffering workshop, the Eastern Court of NobleFusion: Tim Burke, Arthur (Buck) Dorrance, Barbara Hill, and Catherine M. Petrini. And when all their work was done, Laurel Amberdine and Paula Billig stepped up as beta readers to catch the majority of particularly stupid errors before I sent the finished manuscript to my editor.

Speaking of whom, the only reason you’re seeing this book is because of Marco Palmieri. He pursued the idea of this novel, saw in it the promise that had burned in me for more than two decades. He encouraged me to write it, deftly worked around my massive ego to address issues that needed attention, championed its nicheless nature, and never ceased encouraging and supporting the story. Barsk has no greater friend, and I cannot imagine having a better editor for this book. Thank you, Marco, you are a mensch!

A lot of this novel is about the past, as the dedication hints at. But my present and my future belong to my wife, Valerie. A word like “acknowledgment” doesn’t begin to cover how she inspires me to create worlds and characters and stories for her entertainment, just so I can see that look in her eyes. What greater reward could any author ask for?