Questionable Practices

Acknowledgments

These stories were not written by someone working alone in a basement, much as it felt that way at the time.

I thank my collaborators on several of the stories, Michael Swanwick and Rudy Rucker. I thank participants in the Sycamore Hill, Rio Hondo, and Turkey City writers’ workshops and the San Francisco workshop that doesn’t have a name. I thank everyone who offered feedback on specific stories, especially Martha Bayless, Ted Chiang, L. Timmel Duchamp, Andy Duncan, Carol Emshwiller, Karen Joy Fowler, Molly Gloss, Leslie What and Gary Glasser, Ursula K. Le Guin, Kelly Link, Karen Meisner, Pat Murphy, Nick Nussbaum, Peter H. Salus, Ann Sandomire, Nisi Shawl, JT Stewart, and Avon Swofford.

I thank all the people who allowed me to use their names. They are not responsible for anything I made up about them. None of it is true.

For instance, all opinions and hamburger preferences attributed to Michael Swanwick and Samuel R. Delany in the story named for them were invented by me. All trading cards described therein were actually offered by Burger King in March 2005, though not necessarily to Messrs. Swanwick and Delany. Mr. Swanwick does not, to my knowledge, own a chartreuse 1959 Thunderbird.

Protagonists in the Steampunk Quartet — Carmen Machado, Ellis McKenzie Creel, Santosh Philip, and David Gardner and his son Ridley — are real people who bravely volunteered and donated a few biographical details. I thank the authors of the original steampunk stories, who are also real people, for their forbearance.

For “Speak, Geek,” Susan Gossman lent not only her name but her spiffy blue suit, and Mary Kay and Jordin Kare proffered their macho cat Dominic.

I thank all the historical people I mentioned, all the famous people, all the notorious people (you know who you are).

Most of all, I thank everyone who helped make this book a book: Gavin J. Grant, Kelly Link, Paul Witcover, and John D. Berry.

It takes a village to raise a book. None of the parts you don’t like is their fault in any way.

If I’ve forgotten anyone, I plead insanity.

— Eileen Gunn