ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A fix-up novel is a long series of stumbling steps aimed (more or less) towards an ever-shifting set of goal posts. When I wrote “The Chaplain’s Assistant” in 2010 I did not plan to make a book out of it, nor had I yet conceived of the sequel novella, “The Chaplain’s Legacy.” Harrison Barlow (at that time) did not even have a name. He was just a guy. Someone who’d have fit right in on an episode of Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs.
Ideas for expanding the story came later, in fits and starts. Largely because I liked Barlow, and I liked the central conceit of the human vs. mantis conflict. I thought it somewhat original, given the vast number of man-against-alien war stories which have been written over the years.
Eventually I had a large project on my hands, which even in its finished form needed some expert eyes to make it better. I want to thank Toni Weisskopf for providing those eyes. Toni saw what I was trying to do with this book even better than I did, and challenged me to make explicit that which I’d only previously dared to point at with a lot of prosaic road signage. I was never really sure how traditional SF audiences would react to a “church story” like this. But the fact that “The Chaplain’s Assistant” scored well on the Analog magazine readers’ choice ballot—the Analytical Laboratory, or AnLab award—and that “The Chaplain’s Legacy” got me a lot of kind reader mail, told me I was on the right track. Toni simply demanded I take Harrison’s journey to its logical (and inevitable) conclusion.
Better yet: since turning in the final revision for this book, “The Chaplain’s Legacy” has gone on to win the AnLab award for best novella, and was also nominated for the genre’s best-known award: the Hugo.
Apparently my initial misgivings about delving explicitly into the purpose and value of religion—in an ostensibly secular, post-religious, high-tech society—weren’t necessary. People have told me that this is some of my best work. I hope that readers (who’ve read the short story and the novella both) found this expansion to their liking. I risked trying to have too much of a good thing, by enlarging 30,000 words of short fiction into almost 120,000 words of book. Along the way I not only gave Harrison Barlow a history, I also gave him a love interest. Things which were suggested by the original Analog magazine stories, but which never saw print until this novel came into being.
Thanks to everyone at Baen for helping me to make this book what it is. And thanks to Dave Seeley for a truly eye-popping cover!
Also, thanks to the men who worked on my behalf to not only introduce me to Toni Weisskopf, but impress upon her my bona fides as a writer worthy of investment: Larry Correia, Stan Schmidt, Mike Resnick, Kevin J. Anderson, and Chuck Gannon. Accomplished authors, all. It’s been a privilege having the advice and assistance of such wonderful people.