I would like to thank the following people and organizations for their encouragement and support. My family is tremendously loving and giving. Thank you Jen, Miles, Scarlett, Em, Mom, Dad, David, and Amy. My agent PJ Mark somehow manages to be both an incredibly generous and giving human being and a relentless bastard. Amy Hundley, my editor, is wise and exacting, a dream. Matthew Simmons, Fleetwood Robbins, and Suzanne Stockman read an early draft and provided invaluable feedback. Rick Moody, Aimee Bender, Rebecca Brown, and Stephen Elliott have been terrific friends and inspirations. Dave Cornelius, my great mentor, led me to literature. Nate Manny, whom I knew before he was a rock star, did a bangup job on the Web work and marketing stuff. Greg Comer provided amazing architectural renderings of many of the settings. Corey Jurcak and Jeff Johnson tolerantly answered my questions about speculative civil engineering, as did my father. Dr. Roger Freedman, friend and gentleman astrophysicist, provided valuable insights about space colonization. I thank the wry and talented Lori Piskur Macklin for the Spanish translations. Thanks to Tom Nissley and Brad Parsons for their wise counsel over the years. I raise a glass (or three) to Bob Braile. Richard Hugo House and Goddard College’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program saved me from a slow death in a series of cubicles. I would especially like to thank Brian McGuigan, Alix Wilber, and Sue Joerger at Hugo House for the gift of their kindness, and Paul Selig at Goddard for giving me a chance. Thanks, finally, to the Washington State Employment Security Department for the four generous writing grants.