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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In writing this sequel to Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon, I faced two new problems. First, I was expanding the roles of several minor characters from earlier books, and ran the serious risk of inventing aspects of their appearance or their past that would contradict some long-forgotten detail in a previous volume. To avoid this as much as possible, I relied on two online communities.
The Philotic Web (http://www.philoticweb.net) carries a timeline combining the story flows of Ender~c Game and Ender’s Shadow, which proved invaluable to me. It was created by Nathan M. Taylor with the help of Adam Spieckermann.
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On my own website, Hatrack River (http://www.hatrack.com), I posted the first five chapters of the manuscript of this novel, in the hope that readers who had read the other books in the series more recently than I might be able to catch inadvertent inconsistencies and other problems. The Hatrack River community did not disappoint me. Among the many who responded-and I thank them all-I found particular value in the suggestions of Keiko A. Haun (“accio”), .Justin Pollen, Chris Bridges, Josh Galvez (“Zevlag”), David Tayman (“Taalcon”), Alison Purnell (“Eaquae Legit”), Vicki Norris (“CKDexterHaven”), Michael Sloan (“Papa Moose”), and Oliver Withstandley.
In addition, I had the help, chapter by chapter through the whole book, of my regular crew of first readers-Phillip and Em Absher, Kathryn H. Kidd, and my son Geoffrey. My wife, Kristine A. Card, as usual read each chapter while the pages were still warm from the LaserJet. Without them I could not have proceeded with this book.
The second problem posed by this novel was that I wrote it during the war in Afghanistan between the U.S. and its allies and the Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. Since in Shadow Puppets I had to show the future state of relations between the Muslim and Western worlds, and between Israel and its Muslim neighbors, I had to make a prediction about how the current hate-filled situation might someday be resolved. Since I take quite seriously my responsibility to the nations and peoples I write about, I was dependent for much of my understanding of the causes of the present situation on Bernard Lewis’s What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (Oxford University Press, 2001).
This book is dedicated to my wife’s parents. Besides the fact that much of the peace and joy in Kristine’s and my lives comes from our close and harmonious relationship with both our extended families, I owe an additional debt to James B. Allen, for his excellent work as a historian, yes, but more personally for having taught me to approach history fearlessly, going wherever the evidence leads, assuming neither the best nor the worst about people of the past, and adapting my personal worldview wherever it needs adjustment, but never carelessly throwing out previous ideas that remain valid.
To my assistants, Kathleen Bellamy and Scott Allen, I owe much more than I pay them. As for my children, Geoffrey, Emily. and Zina, and my wife, Kristine, they are the reason it’s worth getting out of bed each day.