The Color of Distance

To Dr. Jane Smith, Dr. Robert Ireton, Dr. Jane Uhlir, and to the Swedish Hospital for saving my life. This book and all my subsequent work would not be possible without them.

Acknowledgments and sincere thanks are due to:

Eleanor Arnason, Octavia Butler, Mary Gentle, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Carol Severance, for their inspiration.

To my agent, Don Maass, and to my patient and long-suffering editor, Ginjer Buchanan, without whom this book would never have arrived in your hands.

To the friendly, professional, and helpful staffs of the Seattle Public Library, and the Suzallo and Odegaard Libraries at the University of Washington, who patiently helped me on all sorts of oddball quests for information.

To Dr. Gordon Baker and Jack Haldeman for information on anaphylactic shock.

To the Government of Costa Rica for their farsighted conservation of their rain forests, to Wildland Adventures of Seattle for helping me get to see the Costa Rican rain forests, and to Patricia Maynard for her help and enthusiasm while I was there.

To Jane Hawkins, Vonda Mclntyre, Andy Hooper, Kate Shaefer, and Steve Berry of the Novel Group Workshop, who saw this book pass before their eyes over and over and over again. Their insistence on excellence, accuracy, and good punctuation are what have helped bring out all that is good in this book.

To my second readers: Jon Singer, Ian Hageman, John Hecht, Edd Vick, Rich Dutcher, Ctein, Bruce McDanel, T-Om Seaman, Terry Garey, and Scott Barton. Their support, feedback, and ideas were endlessly helpful.

To Kim Graham for her wonderful reference sketch of the Tendu, and for her rendering of the stick figures in chapter 3.

To Anetta Pirinen for her lightning-fast Finnish translation and to the Ethiopian Community Mutual Association of Seattle for correcting my Amharic.

To Bruce Durocher for his encouragement, enthusiasm, and moral support.

To Margaret Organ-Kean and Kris Wheeler for emotional support during the final crunch.

And to Rosalie the Wonder Cat, who bore all of this book-writing nonsense with exquisite feline martyrdom.