Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge (35 page)

The hardest part about writing the acknowledgments for a book I authored is finding a way to stretch the words, “Great job, Paul!” See, that’s the thing about this book: I wrote it all by myself, because I’m the greatest. If there’s anyone here to acknowledge, it’s definitely just me, and me alone. It’s an unfortunate side effect of being, as you might recall, the greatest.

I mean, who else am I supposed to thank? My editrix, Blair Thornburgh? As if. “You were completely crucial to making this the best book it could ever be” is a sentence that definitely won’t appear in these acknowledgments. And I certainly wouldn’t go on to express my unending gratitude to her for believing in me and my ideas, as well as giving me the chance of a lifetime.

In no way will I thank my agent, Jennie Goloboy, for all her enthusiasm and shrewd creative input. I won’t thank her for her unfailing support and excellent career advice, either. She’s been an invaluable partner and friend during this entire enterprise, but come on, people. Let’s not forget who this party is for.

I guess it’d be customary to thank my mom, my dad, and my brother Timm, but they don’t get a shout-out just for always supporting this crazy little ambition of mine. They don’t need credit for all the books they gave me to instill my deep love of reading. They might’ve sat quietly so many times and let me work out story issues aloud, but it’s not like I’m about to nominate them for sainthood
over it.

Who else? My beta readers Matt Brauer, Cal CaDavid, Ron Corniels, Dustin Martin, Connor McCrate, Natalie Neurauter, Colin Thorpe, Matt Willems, Leslie Wishnevski, and Andrea Zevallos? The people whose feedback kept me humble, and honed this narrative into something that belongs on a shelf and not in a shredder? The people whose kind thoughts and honesty kept me going during the times when I just wanted to roll over and call it a day? Fuck ’em.

Katie Locke might think she’s getting a whole paragraph here, just because she gave me a graf in one of her own books. But if she thinks I’m going to thank her for all the times she tempered my Slytherin cunning with her Ravenclaw wisdom, or for all the super-poutine inside jokes spawned by our daily gchats, she’ll be sorely disappointed.

I’m not about to thank the women and men who work in the service industry. Your customers suck and your pay’s a cruel joke, even though you’re the duct tape that holds the world together and the grease that keeps it running smoothly. If this book is for anyone, it’s for you. But I still won’t thank you, because I was the one who wrote the book while you were all out doing things that really mattered.

I will thank Mira. She’s my roommate’s cat, and she spent most of my drafting process lying quietly in a nearby sunbeam. It was the single most profoundly inspiring thing I’ve ever seen.

And finally, I won’t thank you, dear readers. I probably should, because you’re the people who’ve allowed me to live my dream. But if there’s one thing I suck at, it’s being humble.

Okay, see that last sentence right there? That was me, being humble.

And I nailed it.

PAUL KRUEGER
is a fantasy writer and cocktail connoisseur whose work has appeared in the Sword & Laser anthology. He lives in Los Angeles.