The Republic of Thieves

I’m grateful to Simon Spanton for recommending Antony Sher’s autobiographical Year of the King, a book that didn’t so much directly influence The Republic of Thieves as whet my appetite to portray the players of the Moncraine Company from several angles I hadn’t previously considered. I hope that I may plead to enthusiasts of the theater, as I did to enthusiasts of all things nautical with Red Seas Under Red Skies, to remember that I have not sought to accurately re-create any particular tradition of troupe or performance from our own world, but to arrange selected elements of those traditions in a shape I found amusing.

I’m grateful again to Simon Spanton and Anne Groell for their long-suffering patience and support during a troublesome time; to my brilliant Sarah, who found something broken and helped put it back together; to Lou Anders, Jonathan Strahan, and Gareth-Michael Skarka, who coaxed work out of me when I badly needed to feel capable of it, and lastly to that person whose long correspondence kept me crawling forward in hope during the lowest, darkest point of my life: Thank you.

This concludes the third volume in the Gentleman Bastard sequence, which will continue with The Thorn of Emberlain.

SL

New Richmond, Wisconsin, 2008 – Brookfield, Massachusetts, 2013