The Age of Ice: A Novel (66 page)

Similarly, even English terms and place names have changed over time. For example, Unalaska used to be spelled Oonalaska, and today’s diplomat used to be a diplomatist. Cities have been named and renamed over the centuries. Wilna/Vilna became Vilnius, Calcutta became Kolkata, and St. Petersburg had brief tenures as Petrograd and Leningrad before returning to its original name. Prince Alex typically refers to cities by their contemporaneous names.

I
am tremendously grateful to the people without whose hard work, enthusiasm, and patience this book may never have seen the light of day: Seth Fishman, my agent, and Paul Whitlatch, my editor at Scribner. They are superheroes as far as I am concerned; changing lives is just one of their powers. I am incredibly lucky to have these two on my side.

I am grateful to Sophie Vershbow, my publicist; Anne Cherry, my copyeditor; and Katie Rizzo, my production editor for expertly leading me and the novel to the finish line (or the start line—depending on how you look at it).

Geoff, my partner, deserves special, beaming-smile thanks for his all-out support, for being both my most cherished fan and promoter,
and
the mischievous gremlin who typed irreverent, Russian-inspired words into the manuscript whenever I left it unattended.

Big thanks are due to friends, colleagues, and mentors who believed in me, took my project seriously from its very humble beginnings, and nudged me forward with critical bits of support and advice. Ted Kosmatka, Nancy Kress, Patrick LoBrutto, Rudy Rucker—thank you. Many others helped me through various stages in the manuscript’s life: members of my writing group Horrific Miscue, the Clarion West workshop and its organizers, the wonderful community of speculative fiction writers and fans in Seattle, Washington.

I am thankful to Dr. Hasok Chang for his enthusiastic help with the late eighteenth-century physics of heat and cold, Dr. Stephan Pellenz and Andrea Gentry for advice on German and French languages, and Dr. Gholamali Jafari for help with Farsi and a virtual tour of the Tehran bazaar. I am indebted to my friends Drs. Maria and Ilya Tchoumakov for hosting me in France and introducing me to Paris and Melun. Without Dr. Cecilia Bitz, I would not know by how much one needs to change the meeting temperature of the Arctic ice.

The Age of Ice
is a work of historical fiction, and in writing it, I
attempted to reproduce several true historical events as accurately as possible. I consulted numerous original and secondary, relevant and seemingly irrelevant, English and Russian sources. The most important source materials—and I am lucky to have found them—were three separate independent accounts of Joseph Billings’s Arctic expedition written by its members: Englishman Martin Sauer, German Carl Merck, and Russian Gavrila Sarychev. Talk about a well-rounded perspective!

The names, places, and dates associated with the siege of Orenburg are based on Alexander Pushkin’s
History of the Pugachev’s Rebellion
(in Russian) and accompanying notes. Chilling details of Napoléon’s army’s demise were inspired by Achilles Rose’s account
Napoleon’s Campaign in Russia Anno
1812
, Medico-Historical
and the memoirs of an eyewitness Russian officer, Feodor Glinka.

The events surrounding the siege of Herat and the role of Eldred Pottinger, a historical figure, were informed by the definitive
History of the War in Afghanistan
by John William Kaye, Pottinger’s own correspondence with the British authorities, Lady Florentia Sale’s diary of captivity in Afghanistan (
A Journal of the First Afghan War
), Ivan Blaramberg’s memoir of the Russian mission to Herat (in Russian), and other sources.

Anna Akhmatova’s poems mentioned in the novel were written in 1910–1911 and first published in Russian in 1912. The quoted poems are my own original translations.

Should you, dear reader, find any unintentional factual errors, I apologize and beg leniency: after all, Prince Alex’s memory is hardly perfect, and this book is fortunately—or sadly—just a work of fiction.

SCRIBNER

A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Julia Sidorova

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Scribner hardcover edition July 2013

Jacket design by Tal Goretsky

Jacket photography by Shutterstock

Endpaper map illustration by Mark Stutzman

SCRIBNER
and design are registered trademarks of The Gale Group, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, Inc., the publisher of this work.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at
www.simonspeakers.com
.

ISBN 978-1-4516-
9
271-6

ISBN 978-1-4516-
9
273-0 (ebook)