The Clone Alliance

in a Caplet-free world.

These are the people who helped me with that job. My parents read The Clone Alliance as I went along in weekly installments. My dad, an Analog fan from the first days of the magazine, was particularly helpful.

Once I finished that first draft, I ran copies of that very rough draft to Mark Adams and John Thorpe for suggestions on improving the story line. John was diplomatic about his reservations, Mark was not. The alarms go off when a soft-spoken friend like Mark Adams says he is afraid to send you his comments because he does not want to endanger your friendship. Mark, friends don’t let friends go out in public with their pants down. Thank you, Mark, and thank you, John; many of your suggestions have been added.

I started the third draft of this book before finishing the second—mostly because the biggest problems were in the first half of the book. Once things seemed almost presentable, my wife gave this book its first proofing. With the spelling and punctuation in hand, I finished my half of this project by handing the book off to Rachel Johnson, a family friend who has a great eye for spelling, punctuation, and story suggestions. You may have noticed the dedication—Rachel Johnson is that “Rachel.” Dustin and Dillan are her husband and son.

The second half of this project happened at Ace, where an editor named Anne Sowards cut and cleaned my work. She and her team are the final eyes. She tells me to cut scenes to make the pace faster or to add to scenes to get the point across.

One point I did not spell out adequately in prior novels was why Harris came out so different than the Liberators before him. I could not come up with a satisfactory explanation. Marcelo Sanjines (if the name sounds familiar, it is because Father David Sanjines, the priest in Rogue Clone, borrowed his family name from Marcelo) rescued me from this conundrum. One night while I was grappling with that question, I went out for hot chocolate with Marcelo and he said, “Harris is so different than the other Liberators. Is that because he was raised in an orphanage?”

“Of course,” I said, acting as if I had planned that all along. Thanks, Marcelo. Next time we hit Starbucks, the hot chocolate is on me.

Back to my publisher…There are a lot of benefits that come from being published by Ace Books. The best perk, though, is having my covers created by Christian McGrath.

I wish to thank everyone I have mentioned for their help with this project, except VG Pocket. VG Pocket, your little handheld game system is diabolical in nature.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Novelist/journalist Steven L. Kent lives in Seattle, where he writes science fiction, historical fiction, young adult fiction, and articles about the video game industry that he hopes will not be proven fictitious. For more about Kent, visit his official website www.SadSamsPalace.com.