Author’s Note
SOME READERS WILL be familiar with a previous version of this book published by Tor Books as Servant of a Dark God and wonder what the differences are between that obsolete version and this one.
This version is the result of a significant edit that includes line edits, copy edits, section resequencing, and one important adjustment and addition.
Line edits include changes to make individual sentences or paragraphs read more clearly. I made line edits to almost every page. I think most readers won’t notice these. But then that’s the point.
Copy edits catch small things like typos and misspellings. There were a number of maddening copy issues that weren’t caught in the first version and still others that were introduced as the manuscript moved through production. No book is perfect, and so I’m sure there are still some gremlins lurking in the text. But in this edit we caught and killed a host of the little fiends.
Resequencing involves moving chapters or sections around and does affect the experience. The biggest resequence was switching the first eight chapters back to the original order I intended. This is an important change and will have a large effect on the reader for the first quarter of the book. Then there were three other smaller sections inside the story that needed to be moved around to make the chronology clearer and improve the suspense.
The line, copy, and resequencing edits make up the bulk of the edits. But I did adjust and add a short section to the ending immediately after the climax to clarify a few things that should have been revealed in the first version and that lead into book two.
What does this all mean?
It means that while this is a superior version of the tale, the base story remains the same. I care about the characters of Sugar, Talen, Argoth, Hunger, and the others, and the dilemmas they face. So I did not change their tale. I did significantly change the experience for the reader.
I am stoked about this version. I can’t wait for readers to dig in.