Existence

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe a lot to my coterie of sagacious and unabashed pre-readers, who find innumerable inconsistencies and infelicities, fearlessly telling me wherever the pace-or my storytelling craft-seems to lag. Also, some of them contributed a passel of really cool ideas! I want to thank Sheldon Brown, Vernor Vinge, John Mauldin, Joe Miller, Ellie Miller, Stephen Baxter, Ralph Vicinanza, Erik Flint, Claudio Maccone, Doug McElwain, Stefan Jones, Ernest Lilley, Michelle Nicolosi, Tom Larson, David Moles, Nicholas MacDonald, David Ivory, Tihamer T. Toth-Fejel, Philippe Van Nedervelde, Joy Crisp, David Crisp, Steve Jackson, Mary Amanda Clark, Robert Qualkinbush, Robin Hanson, John Smart, John Powers, William Taylor, Stephen Potts, Beverly Price, Professor Bing Chen, Dan I. Radakovich, Patrick Heffernan, Gray Tan, and Joe Carroll.

To Beth Meacham and Tom Doherty and their comrades at Tor Books, many blessings for your patience. And above all, my love and gratitudinousness to Cheryl and the far-better-than-me kids, who co-endured this long, long haul and helped me past many quagmires of despond.

I promise to write quicker, less exhausting books.

Some of the Hacker scenes were first published as “Life in the Extreme” in Popular Science, special edition, in August 1998. “The Smartest Mob” first appeared in All Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories (2004) and in Jim Baen’s Universe (online). Some of the scenes featuring Peng Xiang Bin appeared in Jim Baen’s Universe in 2009, via the novella “Shoresteading.” A very early version of Tor’s discovery adventure in the asteroid belt appeared as “Lungfish” in Asimov’s Science Fiction in the 1980s and was heavily revised for a 2012 Festschrift volume in honor of Poul Anderson.