Black Man / Thirteen

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This has been a tough one, and I owe a great deal of thanks in a great many places. I have begged, borrowed, and stolen from just about everywhere to get Thirteen written.

It being a novel of science fiction, let’s start with the science:

The original idea for variant thirteen was inspired by the theorizing of Richard Wrangham on the subject of diminishing human aggression, as described by Matt Ridley in his excellent book Nature Via Nurture. I have taken vast fictional liberties with these ideas, and variant thirteen as it emerges in this book is in no way intended to represent either Mr. Wrangham’s or Mr. Ridley’s thoughts on the subject. These gentlemen simply provided me with a springboard—the rather ugly splash that follows is of my making alone.

The concept of artificial chromosome platforms is also borrowed, in this case from Gregory Stock’s fascinating and slightly scary book Redesigning Humans, which, along with Nature Via Nurture and Steven Pinker’s brilliant The Blank Slate and How the Mind Works, served as the bulk inspiration for most of the future genetic science I’ve dreamed up here. Once again, any mangling or misuse of the material I found in these outstanding works must be laid solely at my door.

Yaroshanko intuitive function, though my own invention, owes a large debt of inspiration to very real research done on social networks, as described in Mark Buchanan’s book Small World. And I’m personally indebted to Hannu Rajaniemi at the University of Edinburgh for taking the time to (try to) explain quantum game theory and its potential applications to me, thus giving me the basis for the New Math and its subtle but far-reaching social impact. Thanks also must go to Simon Spanton, star editor, for patiently helping me wrangle the technical logistics of Mars—Earth cryocapping.

In the political sphere, I was heavily influenced by two very perceptive and rather depressing books about the United States, The Right Nation by John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge and What’s the Matter with America by Thomas Frank, as well as the brilliant and slightly less depressing Stiffed by Susan Faludi. While these books all fed into the concept of the Secession and the gender themes arising in Thirteen, the Confederated Republic itself (aka Jesusland) was inspired by the now famous Jesusland map meme, created (according to Wikipedia) by one G. Webb on the message board yakyak.org. Way to go, G.! Special personal thanks must also go to Alan Beatts of Borderlands books in San Francisco for listening to my meanderings over whiskey and shwarma, and lending me a little informed American opinion with which to polish up what I had.

For insights into a possible future (and widely misunderstood past) Islam, I’m also indebted to Tariq Ali for The Clash of Fundamentalisms, Karen Armstrong for Islam: A Short History, and the very courageous Irshad Manji for The Trouble with Islam Today. Here also, I have done my fair share of mangling, and the outcomes in Thirteen do not necessarily bear any relation to anything these authors might endorse.

And finally, I owe a massive debt of gratitude to all those who waited with such immense patience, and still told me to take all the time I needed:

Simon Spanton—again!—and Jo Fletcher at Gollancz, Chris Schluep and Betsy Mitchell at Del Rey, my agent Carolyn Whitaker, and last but not least all those well-wishers who e-mailed me during 2006 with messages of condolence, reassurance, and support. This book would not exist without you.