Far Cry: Absolution

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This novel wouldn’t exist without the fans who have made all the Far Cry games such a success. Thank you for your faith in these worlds, and these stories, and the characters that lend them humanity.

For me video games have always been an escape from the real world, but as video games began to reach new heights, that escape seemed to matter less and less, and the real world and the world of the video game began to merge. In this way video games became something else, not an escape, but something even more powerful and valuable to me. Something that required not just the willingness of the player to be involved and engaged within these worlds, but also the knowledge and understanding of what it is to be human, to see that human condition from many different perspectives and to sympathize with and understand them all. In short, the world of the video game has in many ways become like that of another world I have long found my own salvation within—the world of the novel.

I want to thank Ubisoft for creating some of the best video games this world has ever seen, and for pushing that world ever further with each new iteration and release. I want to thank my team at Ubisoft, Caroline Lamache, Anthony Marcantonio, and Victoria Linel, for reading my past novels and bringing this opportunity to me. This has long been a dream of mine. Thank you for bringing it ever closer with each new draft.

For the people of Ubisoft Montreal who are innovators and leaders in this industry, I want to give a specific thank you to Dan Hay, David Bédard, Jean-Sébastien Décant, Nelly Kong, Manuel Fleurant, and Andrew Holmes for answering my many questions and bringing me behind the curtain. I am continually impressed by just how much work and effort goes into building not just the game of Far Cry, but the universe that surrounds it from the ground up.

I like to think I’m older and wiser now that I’ve made a living at this for the past eight years, but the truth is I’m still learning. And though this is my fourth novel, each time it is different, and each path to publication takes new turns and new directions and I would not have made it if it was not for the people who supported me and who gave me the space to write this novel.

Nat, you’ve been there through all of this. Even from the first story you read of mine in a small literary journal. Thanks for always giving me your best.

To the Mineral School Artist Residency and to the founder, Jane Hodges, thank you for the classroom space where much of this novel was written. To Debra DiDomenico, who is a constant in every acknowledgment I have written, thank you for your support and for introducing me to the Darrington boys and the property there. Tom Heye, your cabin was instrumental in the first iterations of this novel. Jim Haney, Rick Knight, and David Gronbeck, thank you for making the property in Darrington the beautiful place it is today and for opening that place up to me and making me feel welcome there. Thank you.

To Mary Perkins and Ernie Seevers, you two gave me a wonderful studio where I could disappear day after day, and amid all the chaos of everyday life that place became my constant. Thank you.

And speaking of everyday chaos, I would have none of this if it wasn’t for my wife, Karen, who somehow puts up with all my mental and physical absence while writing. You have always been there for me and there isn’t a thank you I can say or give that will ever be big enough, but I’ll keep trying. To you, and to my parents and yours, thank you for helping to raise our children. TiTi and Poppy, Gong Gong and Poh Poh, you guys make this all possible and, most important of all, you kept us all sane. Thank you.