Obsidio
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A huge thank-you to our many advisers, who on this book included Dr. Kate Irving (medical), Dr. Tsana Dolichva (astrophysics), Kira Ostrovska (Russian), Michelle Dennis (hackery), Soraya Een Hajji (Latin), Huang Ying (Mandarin), Rezanne Khalo, Zaynab Al-Kari, Eve Shi, and Hanan Zaid (hijab expertise), Yulin Zhuang (martial arts and general smarts) and Huti Chand, Alan Cockle, and Russell Matiu (Maori). We truly appreciate your help, though, as always, all mistakes are our own. May you never be forced to wait in a closet holding your severed tongue while your fem gets rid of her parents.
We must also thank General Barbara Marcus, and the whole incredible Random House army. You know how we feel about you. We know what you’ve done for us. We dedicated Gemina to our wonderful editor, Melanie Cecka Nolan, who has been everything we could have wished at every moment we’ve needed her. Here’s to the next adventure together! Our designers have been Meinert Hansen (spaceships), Heather Kelly (just…everything), Ray Shappell (those covers!), and Stuart Wade (ship and corporate insignia). May you never be classified as nonessential when the invaders start digging the Hole.
And then there’s Marie Lu. Marie, we truly don’t know what to say to tell you how much it means to have you involved in this series, and to have had your encouragement since day one, but we’ve tried to say it by dedicating the book to you. May you never forget your parachute.
Overseas, the unstoppable forces at Allen & Unwin, Rock the Boat, and all our incredible foreign publishers have been behind us every step of the way. We’d also like to thank our translators, who have been heroic in their attempts to translate our jokes. May you never have a thousand tons of rock and ice collapse on your heads for your fifty-second-birthday present.
We’ve had wonderful support from Adele Walsh and the team at the Centre for Youth Literature, part of the State Library of Victoria, in Melbourne, Australia, and from Louise McNally, who helped us launch these books upon an unsuspecting public. May you never have your Warlock blown to smithereens by a fifteen-year-old girl hacking the rail guns of your own damn dreadnought.
Then there are our agents. Every time we present you with a problem you’ve never seen before—because that’s what these books specialize in—you find a way to handle it without batting an eyelash. Josh and Tracey Adams, Sam Bagood, Matt Bialer and Lindsay Ribar, Stefanie Diaz, Stephen Moore, and the army of foreign agents who have brought these books to dozens of other countries: THANK YOU. And thank you, and thank you, and thank you. May you never tell the plucky hero about your family or fem back home and get X-ed out in the next scene.
As always: Nic Crowhurst and the IRS, for bringing us together. Christopher Tovo, for making us look better than we have any right to expect. May you never start referring to yourself in the third person, no matter how cool you think it makes you sound.
For inspiration, an equally huge thank-you to Marguerite Syvertson and the team at NASA JPL (seriously, do you know you’re rocket scientists?), Hank Green and the team at SciShow Space, and Commander Chris Hadfield. For providing the sound track to this book: Joshua Radin, Matt Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme, Dominic Howard, Tyler Joseph, Josh Dun, Jens Kidman, Fredrik Thordendal, Tomas Haake, Mårten Hagström, Dick Lövgren, Trent Reznor & NIN, Maynard James Keenan & Tool, Winston McCall & PWD, Oliver Sykes & BMTH, Ian Kenny & the Vool, Ludovico Einaudi, Marcus Bridge & Northlane, Robb Flynn & MfnH, D. Randall Blythe & LoG, Jonathan Vigil & TGI, Chris Cornell and Soundgarden, and especially Sam Carter & Architects (RIP Tom—Memento Mori). May you never be wiped out en masse by a “nonexistent” insurgency.
And now to the support crews who keep us intact while we destroy every(fictional)thing around us. Amie’s irreplaceable gang: Meg (little circle, big circle), Michelle, Marie and Leigh, Kacey, Kate, Soraya, Eliza, Nic, Stacey, Peta, Alison and Lindsay, Ellie, Kiersten, C.S. and Sarah RB, Sooz, Alex and Erin, Ryan, the Roti Gang, the Plot Bunnies, and Jack the Human and Edwin for holding the fort. May the temp regulator on your ATLAS never blow on midnight patrol, so most of your skin comes off when they remove your suit.
Jay’s grimy band of nerds and neckbeards: Marc, Surly Jim, B-Money, the goddamn Batman, Rafe, Weez, Sam, Dan C., Orrsome and the Pit Crew, and the Conquest Crowd (RIP). May you never be assigned to planetside duty with a thousand genocidal invaders and one very angry ex-girlfriend.
To our families, who are more than we know how to describe, and quite certainly more than we deserve: thank you. A thousand times thank you. We love you. May you never be shot by an irate former chief of security with a Napoleon complex.
And to Amanda and Brendan. Look at that. We made it. We never would have without you.
New York Times bestselling co-authors
AMIE KAUFMAN
and
JAY KRISTOFF
feast upon your tears and relish your screams. In addition to their international bestsellers Illuminae and Gemina, Amie is the co-author (with Megan Spooner) of the bestselling Starbound trilogy and its successor, Unearthed. She is also the author of Ice Wolves. Jay is the author of the award-winning Lotus War trilogy and the Nevernight Chronicles, as well as the forthcoming novel LIFEL1K3. They live with their respective spouses in Melbourne, Australia. Find Amie and Jay at their websites:
amiekaufman.com and jaykristoff.com.
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