Naomi Novik - Victory of Eagles

So many, many thanks to my fabulous beta readers for this one: Sara Booth, Francesca Coppa, Alison Feeney, and especially Georgina Paterson. I also have to say a big thank-you to my copy editor Laura Jorstad for all her hard work, and especially for the lovely, lovely timeline, which was ever so much more splendid than my sad Excel worksheet.

Special thanks to my agent, Cynthia Manson, and to my very patient editor, Betsy Mitchell, who did not heap too many coals of fire on my head as the deadlines crept quietly away from me. (They do this in the night. Tricky creatures, deadlines.) And to my sister, Sonia, who put me up when (on more than one occasion) I had to flee the dangerous temptations of my home Internet connection and shiny desktop in order to get the book over the finish line in the last nick of time.

I also want to take advantage of my little soapbox here this time to say a special thanks to the whole fan community. I’ve been participating in this community and writing fan fiction since my teens, and I wouldn’t be anywhere near here without that experience and all the incredible people I’ve met thereby. I’ve had the privilege of working with dozens of different beta readers, and serving as one myself for many fellow writers, and I’ve learned tremendously from each and every one. Though I can’t thank them individually and knew most of them only by their online names, I still want to say a heartfelt thank you to them all, and to all the amazing volunteers that I’ve been working with this last year on the Organization for Transformative Works.

And last and first, all my gratitude and love to Charles, my very best reader, whom I trust and who trusts me with the priceless gift of honest critique, and the even better gift of happiness.

NAOMI NOVIK is the acclaimed author of His Majesty’s Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, and Empire of Ivory, the first four volumes of the Temeraire series, recently optioned by Peter Jackson, the Academy Award–winning director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. A history buff with a particular interest in the Napoleonic era, Novik studied English literature at Brown University, then did graduate work in computer science at Columbia University before leaving to participate in the design and development of the computer game Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide. Novik lives in New York City with her husband and six computers.