Kathleen Goonan: Crescent City Rhapsody

It was night when the Be Happy gained its first view of Crescent City.

Zeb stood on deck, holding the railing tightly. Ra was next to him. The city rose from the dark sea in swooping lines of light.

He looked up at the stars. Deep contentment washed through him.

There were mysteries in the heavens. There always had been. No matter what he discovered in the new life ahead, there always would be.

What joy.

For his constant emotional support as I wrote this book, I am grateful, as always, to my husband Joseph. He also maintains my website at www.goonan. com .

To Jennifer Brehl, my astute and patient editor, my heartfelt thanks.

Sean Stewart’s thorough critique helped immensely, as does the Edge group in general.

Thanks to Joseph Kirschvink of Cal Tech for his permission to quote the material in “Break in Four Sections” from Nature , Vol. 370, and from the Internet, and to the Auckland group doing research on biogenic magnetoreceptors—Michael M. Walker, Carol E. Diebel, Cordula V. Haugh, Paricia M. Pankhurst, John C. Montgomery, and Colin R. Green—for their permission to quote their paper on the subject, which appeared in Nature , Vol. 370. Thanks also to Dr. Jon Dobson of the University of Florida for permission to quote his paper in this same section.

Thanks to Dr. Adam Eisenberg of Northwest University for use of his definitions of electromagnetic pulse, signal, and telecommunication taken from the Internet, and to Dr. John Broderick of Virginia Tech for his idea about vacuum tubes.

Many books were exceedingly helpful in shaping my creation of the workings of the Biocities postulated in my books, including but by no means limited to The Biology of the Honeybee by Winston, The Honey Bee by Gould and Gould, and Chemical Communication by Agosta.

All of K. Eric Drexler’s books on nanotechnology, including Engines of Creation, Unbounding the Future , and Nanosystems , and several books which extrapolate from this concept, such as Nanotechnology , edited by B. G. Crandall and Becoming Immortal by W. M. DuCharme, Ph.D., are central to this future history.

The vision and scope of Marshall Savage’s The Millennial Project is central to this book.

Two classics of voudoun culture, Divine Horsemen: The Voodoo Gods of Haiti by Maya Deren and Dancing Spirits: Rhythms and Rituals of Vodun, The Rada Rite by Gerdes Fleurant, guided me in this sector.

And finally, Hasse’s biography, Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington , and Ellington’s own fascinating Music Is My Mistress provided the backbone of the musical framework of the book, but jazz biographies of Mingus ( Beneath the Underdog , Mingus), Coltrane ( Ascension , Nisenson), Sun Ra ( Space Is the Place by John Szwed), and books such as Thinking on Jazz by Burliner and Bebop and Nothingness by Francis Davis, along with countless other books, provided critical insights regarding this uniquely American art.

And thanks to my father, Thomas Goonan, for imprinting me with jazz from infancy, and my mother, Irma Knott Goonan, for supporting me in every endeavor I have attempted.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

AVON BOOKS, ING. An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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Copyright © 2000 by Kathleen Ann Goonan

Interior design by Kellan Peck

ISBN: 0-380-97711-7

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law.

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data:

Goonan, Kathleen Ann.

Crescent City Rhapsody / Kathleen Ann Goonan.—1st ed.

p. cm. I. Title.

PS3557.O628 C74 2000

813'.54 21—dc21 99-042227

First Avon Eos Printing: February 2000

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