The Book of Strange New Things

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A far-flung coterie of people read portions of this book during its composition and offered valuable feedback. I would like to thank Francis Bickmore, Jamie Byng, Jo Dingley, Viktor Janiš, Mary Ellen Kappler, David Kappler-Burch, Lorraine McCann, Paul Owens, Ann Patty, Angela Richardson, Anya Serota, Iris Tupholme and Zachary Wagman. My wife Eva was, as always, my closest and most insightful advisor and collaborator.

The final drafts were finished under difficult circumstances in Lucinda’s attic and in the basement of the Primrose Hill Book Shop, made available for me day & night by Jessica and Marek. My thanks to them.

I would like also to express my appreciation for the team of writers, pencillers and inkers who worked at Marvel Comics during the 1960s and 1970s, giving me such enjoyment as a child and ever since. All the surnames in The Book of Strange New Things are based on theirs, sometimes slightly altered or disguised, sometimes not. My choice of which names to use was governed by narrative concerns and does not reflect my esteem of the comics creators homaged & not homaged. No similarity is intended between the attributes of the Marvel Bullpen and the attributes of the characters in this novel, except for some obvious allusions to that pioneer of new universes, Jakob Kurtzberg (Jack Kirby).