Empire

Acknowledgements

My first and greatest thanks must go to Donald Mustard and his team at Chair Entertainment, who began developing the videogame of Empire and yet held off on committing to any storyline so that I would be free to let the characters, situations, and events of this novel develop organically. Their development work provided the premise of a new American civil war, the mechs and the hovercycles, the falling and rising water level in a lake in the state of Washington, and the hero whose life ends, leaving others to carry on to victory. These were potent seeds to nurture in a story that is otherwise my own.

Over the past few years, as my novel Ender’s Game has been more and more widely read and discussed within America’s military communities, I have had opportunities to meet many soldiers and have been deeply impressed, not just by the standard military virtues of courage, commitment, and loyalty, but also by the level of intelligence, education, open-mindedness, initiative, tolerance, patience, and wisdom that are not just the virtues of individuals, but the virtues admired and striven for within a surprisingly vibrant and healthy portion of American society. Our military is, of course, not immune to the diseases that afflict all such institutions throughout the world, but they are aware of those potential problems and many brilliant and dedicated officers and soldiers constantly seek to avoid them in their service to our country. I salute them.

However, I do not name them, mostly because I would not want any of them to be blamed for the many errors I am bound to have made in this book. I have never served in the military, and when trying to depict a complex and long-lived society, no amount of research can compensate for lack of membership in it. The mistakes are are my own. To those who have helped me achieve such understanding as I managed to achieve, I give my thanks. You know who you are. Godspeed to you.

During the writing of this book I relied, as never before, on the internet. When I make up a fantasy or science fictional world, or work in a historical period, the Internet is usually quite useless. I am relying either on my imagination or on historical information so arcane and detailed that it can only be found in books. With Empire, however, I was working in the very near future, and so contemporary information was essential.

The website usmilitary.about.com provided me with information bout the specific weapons that my characters would be carrying into combat. Google Maps took me moment by moment through chase scenes and combat in Washington, D.C., and New York City and helped me find Cole’s route into Washington State; Google Earth gave me two imaginary reservoirs behind impractical dams in the stretch of land near Highway 12 between Mount Saint Helens and Mount Rainier.

As always, I relied on my team of pre-readers. Since they have lives of their own, I sometimes churn out chapters when they can’t ake time to read them. Thus over the progress of a novel, I will be helped now by this reader, now by another. Early in the writing of his book, Aaron Johnston and Erin and Phillip Absher gave me luick and valuable responses; later on, the burden shifted onto Kathryn H. Kidd and Geoffrey Card, who kept me alert to problems and possibilities. Errors were also caught by members of the online forum at my Hatrack.com website, including Alexis Gray and Marc Van Pelt.

Of course Donald Mustard, who was creating the game right along with my writing of the novel, saw every chapter and responded helpfully. In particular, I owe to him and his brother Jeremy some of the closure in the last two chapters.

And I was much encouraged by the observations of my friend and colleague Lynn Hendee, on whose judgment I have long relied.

As with all my books, every chapter was seen first by my wife, Kristine, who as always caught many errors and alerted me to problems that no one else noticed. Until she is pleased, the chapter is not done.

And my editor, Beth Meacham, not only gave me excellent suggestions at key points in the writing process, she also set aside other work to read the chapters the moment they were written. Because of that, and her heroic labors on behalf of the book when it took longer to develop the story than I had anticipated, we were able to meet the deadline to get this book published in the fall of 2006, a mere four months after I finished writing it.

I also appreciate the rest of the staff at TOR who have gone the extra mile to make up for my lateness and to compensate for my errors. I’m proud of how you made this book look and how you brought it before the public.

And to my publisher, Tom Doherty: Thank you for betting on a pig in a poke and trusting me to deliver. That you do not have an ulcer is entirely not my fault.

Barbara Bova, my agent, is both my protector and provocateur—it’s been an exciting thirty years, hasn’t it?

And to Zina Card, who spent hours watching episodes of 24 with Kristine and me so I could keep in mind the rhythms and energy of an effective thriller, thank you for your delightful company and your patience with my need to make you visit Washington, D.C., twice this summer. Now you get your normal family back—at least until the next book.