Omega

These are the people who helped me during the writing and publication of this book, in no particular order.

Hated me by the end:

Heather Rodefer, my tireless Editor-in-Chief, fearless wielder of the purple pen and vanquisher of all typographical errors. This is the girl who never cries at the end of sappy movies, nor sheds a single drop from sad books. The fact that I made her cry is probably the greatest achievement of my writing career. She punched me over this. Seriously. In the arm. It hurt.

Damarra Atkins, she of the witty inside-geek jokes, who called me worse than Joss Whedon (Wha?! Every writer is worse than Joss Whedon! How much worse is the question…). But at least she didn’t hit me.

Robin McDermott, who fixed many a technical error, and accused me of being far too wordy for my own good and yours, Dear Reader. I trust you all own a dictionary, though, so…

Shannon Garza, whose feelings I rely on to take the emotional temperature of my books. Whose heart I broke, whose tears I stole, whose forgiveness I may never earn. Sorry, Red.

Didn’t hate me by the end:

Paul Madsen, who found any number of proofreading oopsies on my part, and who gushed praise about the ending. Well, probably about as gushy as Paul gets, I’m guessing.

Kea Grace, the first to finish, first to render opinion, and whose measured evaluation allowed me to stay the course.

Kari Layman, who berated me for almost an hour on the phone at a moment when I seriously considered changing the ending to something that would be less angst-causing. If you didn’t like it, blame her.

Debra Wesley, whose gleeful cackling and constant attention to detail combined to make me worry about her until she told me she loved the story from top to bottom, and not to change a thing, even when Damarra (also) wanted to hit me for it.

Were thankfully neutral about the whole mess:

Sarah Barbour (aeroplanemedia.wordpress.com) who did the final edit and proofread in record time in spite of being hired at the very last minute, still managing to correct for errors great and small, including Russian language (Who does that!? She does!) and a number of suggestions that made the manuscript read much more smoothly. Sarah also did the editing on Untouched, but went unacknowledged due to authorial oversight.

Karri Klawiter of artbykarri.com, whose covers do shine like…uhh…well, they’re shiny, in a very «Firefly» sense of the word. Shiny.

To my parents, who raised me, to my wife, who tolerates me, and my kids, who drive me slightly crazy. Love you all.