Codex Born

Acknowledgments

One year ago, I was doing the new-book dance¹ and desperately trying not to freak out over the release of my first hardcover with DAW. I failed, but I was trying. I was so excited about the idea of a magic-wielding librarian, about bringing Smudge back, about getting to write a story about the love of books. I was also terrified, because I had absolutely no idea how this book would do.

Libriomancer went into a second printing within two weeks. Then a third, and a fourth. It made the Locus Bestseller list. It was picked up by the Science Fiction Book Club, released as an audio book from Audible, and just came out overseas from Del Rey UK.

Thank you all so much. I feel like the clichéd TV drunk who keeps hugging everyone and saying, “I love you, man!” but it’s true. Thank you for reading, for your emails and your reviews, for telling your friends about the book and for simply sharing the wonder with me.

Thanks to everyone at DAW, too. For seven years Sheila Gilbert has believed in me and helped me improve each of my books, including this one. Thanks also to Joshua Starr, Katie Hoffman, Jodi Rosoff, and everyone else who worked behind the scenes to help make Codex Born happen, as well as to artist Gene Mollica, who actually managed to track down a cover model with Lena’s smile.

Joshua Bilmes at JABberwocky has been the other constant in my career, helping to sell my books here in the U.S. and elsewhere. Joshua has always gone above and beyond to support his clients, and it’s very much appreciated.

Margaret Yang gets a special shout-out here, both for her helpful feedback on Codex Born’s storyline and for her invaluable linguistic assistance. I will be forever indebted to her for stopping me from calling a group of magic-users “The Stomach of Mister Bi.”²

Thank you to author Kelly McCullough, who also read a draft of the story and helped me whip it into shape. (Even if he did limit his feedback to just the English words.)

Finally, a big old hug of gratitude to everyone on Twitter, Facebook, and my blog, who helped me with more nitpicky details than I can count, from the plausibility and potential problems of trying to read books underwater to an extensive debate about whether or not sparkling vampires could metabolize marijuana.³

As a reward for reading this note, here’s a behind-the-scenes tidbit: the T-shirt Isaac wears in chapter 13 originally said simply, “Ook.” I changed it because I didn’t think everyone would get the joke, but you and I know what Isaac’s favorite shirt really says.⁴

Thank you, and I hope you enjoy the second volume of Magic ex Libris.