The Wall of Storms

NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Much of the magic of Dara consists of what we might term “technology.” I’m indebted in my thinking about this subject to W. Brian Arthur, whose book, The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves, provided many of the core ideas that guided the engineer-heroes of this series.

For a wonderful introduction to the amazing inventions of the age of electrostatics, consult Michael Brian Schiffer’s Draw the Lightning Down: Benjamin Franklin and Electrical Technology in the Age of Enlightenment. While writing this book, I shocked myself multiple times with a Wimshurst machine and multiple Leyden jars—not an experiment I recommend to readers.

Bronze mirrors that reflect embossed patterns on the back of the mirror onto a screen even though they appear perfectly smooth are real, and they existed during the Han Dynasty. To learn more about them, see M. V. Berry’s “Oriental Magic Mirrors and the Laplacian Image,” in European Journal of Physics 27.1, 2006 (page 109).

Slam-rod fire starters like those used by the Adüans have been used by the people of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands for generations. The same principle lies behind the diesel engine.

The spinning shanty sung by the crew of Silkmotic Arrow was adapted from “The Silk-Making Woman,” by Zhang Yu, an eleventh-century poet of the Song Dynasty.

Special thanks to Igor Teper, who helped me come up with the idea of using the garinafin gut as the insulator in an especially powerful Leyden jar to shock the winged beasts, and to Amal El-Mohtar, who taught me the kenning “the word-hungry animal.”

As always, my beta readers gave me invaluable feedback and proffered many wonderful suggestions to improve the novel: Anatoly Belilovsky, Dario Ciriello, Anaea Lay, Usman Malik, John P. Murphy, Erica Naone, Alex Shvartsman, Carmen Yiling Yan, Florina Yezril, and Caroline Yoachim. I am deeply indebted for their help.

My editor, Joe Monti, and my agent, Russ Galen, guided me with calm and steady hands through the wall of storms that threatened to capsize this book. Joe, especially, helped me through some particularly thorny passages. Everyone at Saga Press and Simon & Schuster pitched in to make this book as good as possible, and I’m grateful for their efforts. Among the large cast are Jeannie Ng and Valerie Shea, who caught the errors in the manuscript during copyediting; Michael McCartney, Sam Weber, and Robert Lazzaretti, who provided the beautiful art design, cover, and maps; Elena Stokes, Katy Hershberger, and Aubrey Churchward, who built the publicity campaign.

Last but not least, my family played perhaps the most important role of all. My mother-in-law, Helen Tang, pitched in to help with the kids so that I could have time on the weekends to write. My wife, Lisa, was the most critical beta reader of them all, and gave me the confidence to finish what seemed an impossible task. And above all, the wonder my daughters expressed at the world was the spark that lit up the heart of this book.