Pink Noise - Leonid Korogodski [67]
Before I attended Viable Paradise, I had learned much about writing from Kij Johnson at the Center for the Study of Science Fiction Novel Writing Workshop and from Marta Randall at Gotham Writing Workshops. While working on Pink Noise, I received helpful comments from many people, at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Online Writing Workshop (sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com), Authonomy, Baen’s Bar, and in the face-to-face critique groups of which I was or am a member: Boston Critters, Second Supper, and Newport Round Table, the latter organized by Mark Ellis and Melissa Martin Ellis.
A modified excerpt from the first chapter of Pink Noise won first prize in the contest for the best prose poem under 500 words in speculative fiction at Odyssey Con 2009, judged by Joe Haldeman, and was published in the convention’s proceedings under the title, 100 seconds from the Century of Martian Wars. I would like to thank the organizer of the contest, a poet and VP graduate, F. J. Bergmann.
When researching the scientific aspects of the story, I was priviliged to have many stimulating conversations with Rodolfo Llinás of New York University School of Medicine (who, among other things, suggested the clockface metaphor in Chapter 3) and Anthony Peratt of Los Alamos National Laboratory. I have also learned from Eric Lerner and members of the Thunderbolts group (thunderbolts.info): Donald Scott, Wallace Thornhill, David Talbott, and many others.
The publication of this book was made possible by the generous support of Elizabeth Bell Carroll, Mikhail Faktorovich, and my brother, Alexander Korogodsky.
As the book’s editor, Elizabeth rescued me from making some embarrassing mistakes and pushed me into finding better turns of phrase in certain places where I would have otherwise remained content with what I had. Guddah of guddah.com took the story to heart and made the illustrations for the story and the cover art. He also did an awesome job on my website, pinknoise.net. I am truly fortunate to have such good friends.
Simon A. Forward helped to write the pitch, found on the front flap of the dust jacket. Many thanks to Jane Frank of wow-art.com for teaching me the importance of illustrations and the much needed harangue on all the things that possibly can go wrong. To Frank Nemeyer of score for his advice, emphasizing the importance of distribution. To Jennifer Grahovac, Rod Kneiper, Emily Sedlak, Kim Swanstrom, and Mike Topovsky of BookMasters® Inc., this book’s distributor and fulfilment company, for seeing me through this part of the business. I am indebted to Alan Litovsky for his legal help, and to Jeff Danziger for his invaluable support.
Nqina Dlamini, Sibusiso Mbokazi, and other members of the isizulu.net community translated for me some of the Zulu phrases. Jessy and Manoj Varghese helped me with the Malayalam. Any mistakes that may remain are mine.
Many thanks to Falit Pandya, a director of Print Vision Pvt. Ltd., for his help in literally putting Pink Noise on paper and considerable patience in answering my questions. I am also grateful to Marcia Santos of Kirkwood Printing, who oversaw printing of the 50 Advance Reading Copies, as well as everyone at Acme Bookbinding that printed and bound them.
Special thank you to the writers who gave their time to reading this book and commenting on it.
The people who helped me at various stages of the project are many. I apologize in advance if the following list is incomplete. Thanks go to Jason Ahlquist, Kweku Asumang, Lucia Bibolini, Jak Brienhead, Sara “Azbukivedi” Bukin, Maria Bustillos, Kurt Campbell, Karen Carr, S. Harrison Carter Jr., John Chu, Carlos Jiménez-Cortés, Susan Curnow, Rob Davies, Bea Deen, Linda DiPalma, Nancy L. Driggs, Mark Ellis, Melissa Martin Ellis, Robert Gardner, Stephen Gallup, Peter Greenwell, Jessica Grota, Whitley Hodges, L. David Holbrook Jr., Corin Sän Inman, Patty