Zoe's Tale Page 31

  Also, an extra special set of thanks to the readers of my blog Whatever, who had to put up with quite a lot of disruptions this year as I tried to get this book done. Fortunately, they’re good at keeping themselves amused while I’m banging on the keyboard like a monkey. And a fond farewell to readers of By the Way and Ficlets.

  Certain names in the book are borrowed from people I know, because I’m really bad at making up names. So hat tips are in order to my friends Gretchen Schafer, Magdy Tawadrous, Joe Rybicki, Jeff Hentosz, and Joe Loong, who has the special distinction of having been murdered in two of my books now. It’s not a trend, Joe. I swear.

  One final reason that I wanted to do Zoe’s Tale is because I have a daughter of my own, Athena, and I wanted her to have a character of mine that she could feel kinship with. As I write this, my daughter is nine, which is quite a bit younger than Zoë is in this book, so it’s not accurate to say the character is based on Athena. Nevertheless many of Athena’s qualities are in evidence in Zoë, including some of her sense of humor and her awareness of who she is in the world. So my thanks and love go to Athena, for being an inspiration for this book, and for my life in general. This is her book.

  BIOGRAPHY

  JOHN SCALZI won the 2006 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and his debut novel Old Man’s War was a finalist for the Hugo Award. His other novels include The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, and The Android’s Dream. His weblog, The Whatever (www.scalzi.com/whatever), is one of the longest-running vand most widely read journals on the Internet. He lives in southern Ohio with his wife and daughter.