Acknowledgments
My wife Diana has been my greatest supporter. The Plague Year trilogy would not exist without her hard work and sacrifice, so I think everyone owes her a cool drink and some curly fries with a side of ranch, yes? Our boys are also remarkably understanding of Daddy’s strange hours, and I want to thank them, too. I love you, Johnny Six and Bee Ee En.
Some of the usual suspects are also to blame for helping me with this noveclass="underline" Mike May, Professor of Entomology at Rutgers University; Lt. Colonel “Bear” Lihani, United States Air Force (ret.); Major Brian Woolworth, U.S. Army Special Forces; and my father, Gus Carlson, Ph.D., mechanical engineer and former division leader at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Anytime I needed to bolt an air compressor to the floor of a single-engine plane or build a clean room out of nothing more than plastic sheeting and duct tape, Dad was there, like Batman, and I appreciate it more than I can say.
I’d also like to express my gratitude to Andreas Heinrich, Ph.D., one of the sharpest minds in nanotechnology today. Andreas fielded any number of weird questions as well as inviting me to step into a lab full of authentic nanotech gear. Wow! Fortunately, he didn’t let me turn anything on.
Charles H. Hanson, M.D., and Sumit Sen, M.D., also both took the time to answer morbid questions throughout the genesis of this book.
My friend and evil genius Matthew J. Harrington is responsible for the smoke detectors.
I’d also like to thank Aileen Chung Der and Nissan Jp for their assistance in researching China’s culture, languages, and military. The Chinese become the bad guys in the second and third Plague novels, but this turn of events was meant with respect. The story needed a plausible enemy, and China is a major force in the world. Without its strength, I didn’t have a plot, so thank you.
My agents, Donald Maass and Cameron McClure, continue to be top-notch. Thank you also to J. L. Stermer, Amy Boggs, and everyone else in the office. I appreciate their hard work as well as the contributions of my team at Ace. Anne Sowards, Cam “The Other Cam” Dufty, and Ginjer Buchanan have all been fantastic, as have Eric Williams and Judith Lagerman, the bright duo behind the cover art for these novels. Meghan Mahler takes credit for the eye-catching maps.
Also a gigantic thanks to Jeremy Tolbert of [http://www.jeremiahtolbert.com] www.jeremiahtolbert.com for my flashy new Web site at [http://www.jverse.com] www.jverse.com. Come on by! Jverse offers free fiction, videos, contests, advance news on upcoming projects, and more.
Finally, I’d like to thank Ruth, Cam, and the rest of the gang. They may exist only in my brain, but I really, really enjoyed my time with them. I hope you have, too.