The Worker Prince (33 page)

BOOK: The Worker Prince

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Acknowledgements

The idea for this story came to me when I was a fifteen-year-old science fiction fan living in a small Kansas town where it sometimes felt like dreaming was the only way out. Over the years, I lost my original notes, but the idea in my head and the names Xalivar and Sol stayed with me.

It took me twenty-five years to start writing it and I wrote daily through some of the toughest trials I’ve experienced in my life. So this book you hold in your hand is a victory in many ways, and I’m very excited and proud of it and hope you’ll enjoy it and share it with others.

Thanks go first to Lost Genre Guild for inspiring me to try writing for
Digital Dragon
and to T.W. Ambrose for encouraging me to write more space opera stories, and then agreeing to publish them. An abridged version of the prologue to this novel first appeared in
Digital Dragon
’s May 2010 issue.

Secondly, thanks go to fellow authors like Blake Charlton, Ken Scholes, Jay Lake, Mike Resnick, Leon Metz, Moses Siregar, and Grace Bridges who have supported, encouraged, and advised me time and time again, no matter how silly my questions were or how many times they’d heard them before. Special thanks to Blake and Grace for taking time to read and offer more specific advice to help me grow as a writer and to Mike Resnick for advice in figuring out this crazy business.

Thirdly, thanks to first readers and friends like Larry Thomson, Tim Pearse, Jeff Vaughn, David Melson, Todd Ward, Mike Wallace, Andrew Reeves, Chris Zylo Owens, and the members of the FCW-Basic Critique Group for actually seeming to enjoy my writing even in its roughest form and for giving me feedback which helped me to improve it greatly.

Fourthly, thanks to friends like Charlie Davidson, Aaron Zapata, Mark Dalbey, Nelson Jennings, and Greg Baerg, who, along with some of the guys above, have helped me escape from behind the desk and keyboard and laugh a little bit when I needed it.

Fifthly, thanks to Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, and Peter J. Wacks at WordFire for the chance to release an improved, polished version and finally conclude the trilogy. And thanks to Vivian Trask, Randy Streu, Jen Ambrose, Paul Conant and Darlene Oakley for their editing and advice, the El Paso Writer’s League for encouragement and fellowship, and Mike Wallace for the science of the Boralis solar system. Thanks also to Jeana Clark for the solar system map which brought it to life for me.

Thanks to you, the reader, for taking a chance on a new, unknown writer. I hope you like it enough to come back for more.

Thanks to God for making me in His image and giving me the talent and inspiration to do this and continually opening the doors. I look forward to seeing what’s behind the next ones.

About the Author

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is a critically praised author and Hugo-nominated editor of adult and children’s speculative fiction. His debut novel,
The Worker Prince
received Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble Book Club’s Year’s Best Science Fiction Releases for 2011. His short stories have appeared in magazines, anthologies, and online. His anthologies as editor include
Shattered Shields
(2014) with co-editor Jennifer Brozek,
Mission: Tomorrow
(2015),
Galactic Games
(forthcoming),
Little Green Men—Attack!
(forthcoming), and
Monster Hunter Tales
with co-editor Larry Corriea (forthcoming) all for Baen,
Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6
(2012),
Beyond The Sun
(2013) and
Raygun Chronicles: Space Opera For a New Age
(2013) as well as
Joe Ledger: Unstoppable
co-edited by Jonathan Maberry for St. Martins Griffin (forthcoming 2017). From 2010 to 2015, he hosted #sffwrtcht (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writer’s Chat) Wednesdays at 9 pm ET on Twitter as @SFFWRTCHT.