The Shattered Sphere

Author’s Note

“Have you finished The Shattered Sphere yet?”

That is the question I have been asked more than any other since The Ring of Charon came out. Readers, friends, editors, agents, and all sorts of other people have wanted to know. I am more pleased than you can know that the answer is now “yes.” Here it is.

To everyone who has been patient—and impatient— for this book, let me say thank you. I hope that the results have been worth the wait.

Special thanks are due to my editor, Debbie Notkin, and to Beth Meacham, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Tom Doherty, and the entire staff at Tor Books. Now, at long last, I can stop hiding from them. Thanks also, once again, to Linda Silk, whose artwork graced the advance reading copies. Thanks to my parents, Tarn and Scottie, for their comments on the manuscript.

And finally, thanks also to Eleanore Maury Fox, to whom this book is dedicated. She read the original manuscript and provided a great deal of firm and much-needed advice. There are, needless to say, a lot of other reasons for me to say thanks to Eleanore, but that’s another story—one that isn’t anywhere near done yet.

—Roger MacBride Allen, London, August 1993