ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
While I was writing these books, the great English fantasy author Terry Pratchett passed away.
There have been many great words spoken about Terry. I cannot really add to them. I can simply say that his passing was a great loss to the written word, to SF/F and even to SF/F fandom. For various reasons, my reading (as noted in a previous acknowledgement) has dropped off sharply since becoming a professional author. Pratchett was my comfort read. He was always there for me when I needed to escape both the mundane world and the worlds in my head. Because his worlds were even more rich and textured. And oh-my-God were they funnier!
If you have never read Pratchett, you’re wrong. My suggestion is pick up a copy of Guards! Guards! and start there. There are some of his works that are lesser (I detest Sourcery personally) but the same can be said of any author. (Ahem. Ghost. Ahem.) However, do start with his earlier works. Learn the background of the Witches (Equal Rites) and the Guards (the previously noted Guards! Guards!) And Death. Oh, my, Death. Only Pratchett could have made Death himself an approachable and even humorous figure. One of the best novels I’ve ever read is Reaper Man, followed closely by Hogfather. I’m sure that when the Reaper came for one of modern English’s greatest authors, he had a few words to say. Hopefully they were “liked your books.”
If you have read Pratchett, I hope you like the occasional less-than-subtle homages in this book. I’m still trying to fit in the Librarian but I think that might be in a later book.
—John Ringo
We wrote about how the MHI Memoirs novels came about in the previous acknowledgements. It isn’t often that you get surprised by a really successful author saying “Hey, I wrote a bunch of books in your universe, want them?”
The hard part for me was tweaking things to fit the rest of the Monster Hunter universe, while trying to not change John’s vision or voice. Editing is tough. To me, writing is easy and fun while editing is hard work. So I just want to say I couldn’t have done this project without the help of our excellent editor and publisher. So thank you, Toni Weisskopf, for putting up with us.
And again, I want to thank John for creating the memoirs.
I hope you guys enjoy this one.
—Larry Correia