There seems to be a certain consistency to my story ideas: When I think that they're going to turn out to be short and sweet and funny, more often than not, the exact opposite happens. In this case, I at least managed to get a tale nowhere near as dark as its predecessor, Until the End of Time, so instead, it turned out to be longer. A lot longer. About... 45,000 words longer. Sigh. But there are reasons.

To start with, I first began work on this story in late March of 2000, just after I'd finished writing the aforementioned grim novel. I didn't think the research would turn out to be quite so difficult. I not only wound up reading at least six separate books concerning the historical period in which the latter two-thirds of the story takes place, but found myself needing to do a considerable amount of research into specific historical events, persons, places, and -- here's the odd one -- diseases. I really didn't want to use the one I wound up using as a plot device -- there was another I would've vastly preferred, being less cliche and more educational, in some aspects -- but I found myself stuck with it because of a niggly little thing: the incubation period, and I even had to stretch that a little, but not much. I now know more about the various diseases rampant in this particular time period than I ever wanted to know.

Concerning certain historical persons and their connections to other persons in the story: This is, obviously, wholly fictitious, but not without some grains of truth. For one, I found conflicting reports in history books concerning the whereabouts and relationships between two particular people at this point in time. Considering the amount of political and social upheaval that was going on in this era, I don't find the inconsistent reports all that surprising. And because of them, I was able to make use of the historical uncertainty to invent another character and slip her into the cracks of history, and thus into the backgrounds of our favorite characters. You'll know who I'm talking about when you get to that part of the story. All things considered, her very existence isn't really that far-fetched, given the times and the persons involved, and it certainly made for an amusing twist to things. Other than that, this pretty much ties off all the threads I had running through my "Other Realities" trilogy. (Pretty much. There's still one out there, and I'm just toying with it for now.) Our characters are now ready to move on to another -- hopefully more amusing -- part of life.

And finally: As I said, this story took much longer to write than I'd ever expected it would. For a long time, I wondered why, but now I know: During the last month of work, I started wondering to whom I would dedicate it, kept coming up blank -- and one week to the day before I finished, one of my three writing mentors, Gordon R. Dickson, died. As soon as I heard that Gordy had passed away, I knew that I had to dedicate this book to his memory. Aside from being one of the best mentors and dearest friends I've ever had, Gordy was also a huge history buff, and I think he would've enjoyed the time period I'd chosen for the bulk of this story. Since Gordy was also the person who first told me, "Don't worry about length, just tell the story and it'll be as long as it needs to be," it seemed terribly appropriate. For those of you who are readers of science fiction, you might be most familiar with Gordy's works through his two most popular series of books: The Childe Cycle, which contains his tales of the Dorsai and the other "splinter cultures" of Earth's future, and The Dragon Knight semi-fantasy series, which began with the very amusing book The Dragon and the George. Gordy has won every writing award science fiction has to offer, and has been one of the most endearing and accessible authors in the field. He was incredibly prolific during his career, and was as much a fan of SF as he was a writer of it. His stories are imbued not only with imagination and profound insight, but with vividly realized characters who make the tales come alive for the reader in ways certain other types of SF and fantasy do not. Of all the short stories, novellas, and novels Gordy wrote, my favorite happens to be a novella that is one of the few stories that can make me cry because of how the characters in it touch the reader's soul. It's one of his tales of the Dorsai, "Brothers," and if you've never read anything of his, go find it and read it, in his memory.

So, now that the long haul is finally over, I dedicate this story to my departed friend and mentor, and hope that I have learned the lessons he taught me well. Shai Dorsai, Gordy.