First, thank you to James Oswald for having his book launch (read his books!) at the Edinburgh Bookshop (a most excellent indie), where I chatted with Alex Clarke of Wildfire and semi-jokingly asked him to let me know if he needed any thrillers. Turns out he did! Thank you for telling me to not be afraid to give Goldilocks the quiet moments and sense of scope of the universe.

As ever, a round of applause for my powerhouse of an agent, Juliet Mushens, whose belief in me has not wavered, despite how low my own confidence in my writing has become at certain points over the last six years.

My gratitude especially to my editor Ella Gordon for her constant championship along the way—looking at my plot spreadsheets, my messy partial drafts, my slightly less messy later drafts, and eventually the draft which was as shiny as I could make it. You have been a joy to work with, along with everyone else on the Wildfire and Orbit U.S. team: my U.S. editor, Bradley Englert, my publicists Rosie Margesson and Ellen Wright, and everyone else in marketing, sales, rights, as well as my publishers in translation.

To my usual most ardent cheerleaders: my mom, Sally Baxter, and my husband, Craig Lam. I love you taller than outer space. To extraordinary beta readers or people who let me witter on about plot problems: Erica Bretall, Amy Plum, Lorna McKay, Emily Still, Mike Kalar, Anne Lyle, Hannah Kaner, Kim Curran, and the Ladies of Literary License, Peta Freestone & Amber Lough. Thank you to my colleagues/work family David Bishop and Daniel Shand at Edinburgh Napier for dealing with my frazzled deadline state with good grace, and to my students on the Creative Writing MA, past and present. I learn as much from you as you learn from me.

Thank you to the cafes in Edinburgh where I’d haunt tables for hours, but especially to Artisan Roast Coffee in Bruntsfield and Hideout Café in Leith.

As someone with no scientific background, I am eternally grateful to those who offered their expertise and answered my many, many questions with kindness and patience. Any science mistakes within the text are my own. I’ll arrange by topic…

Social Dimensions of Outer Space

I never would have had the confidence to write such a science-heavy book without the experience and network I had working on the Scotland in Space, organised through the Social Dimensions of Outer Space research group and a joint project between Edinburgh Napier University, the University of Edinburgh, and the Edinburgh Futures institute. I wrote a short story as part of the interdisciplinary anthology (which you should check out!). Special thanks to the literature/human geography people: Dr. Deborah Scott, Dr. Simon Malpas, Dr. Elsa Bouet, Dr. Russell Jones. Also to publisher Noel Chidwick and PhD candidate on innovation in the space sector, Matjas Vidmar.

Astrophysics, Exosolar Planets, and the Headache of Special Relativity