ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A number of people spent heaps of time, energy, and patience helping me with this book, and I’d like to thank all of them right here: Tim Powers, for his endless invention and friendship; Lew Shiner, for his insight and his relentless standards; Merrilee Heifetz, who tirelessly read and edited fledgling chapters; and Art Stone, one of the world’s most generous humans, for all of his cheerful help in ways both literary and non-literary. I’d especially like to thank John Accursi, who has an almost eerie talent for sensing what a book ought to be and how it might arrive there, and Craig Yamasaki, who did more than he knows to help me push this vehicle in the right direction back when it was still just a creaking collection of oddball parts. And finally I’m grateful to my friend Chris Arena, whose far-flung talents and his knowledge of both practical and arcane things make him the best kind of reference source.
For Viki, John and Daniel
And this time,
For the Duncan Family, Sydnee, Kelsi, Hope, Mark, Pam, and Scott (and Jake)
10,000 videotapes
900 ducks
8 bottles of Bachelor Bitter
4 pounds of bratwurst
2 canoes
1 barbecue
a carpet of snow on Thanksgiving morning
no earthquakes