The Explorer

by James Smythe

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks go first and foremost to Dr Robert Simpson, friend and astrophysicist. When I started writing The Explorer I threw ideas at him, over and over. A lot of the science (the stuff that’s right and logical) is probably down to him. The other stuff? Blame me for that.

  Sam Copeland is my agent, and I couldn’t be more grateful for all of his hard work. He saw this novel in its earliest form and knew what it ultimately could be. He told me that I could make it that novel, so thank/blame him appropriately. Thanks too to everybody else at RCW.

  Thanks to Amy McCulloch, whose suggestions for edits made the novel better with each press of the Delete key. Thanks also to my copyeditor, Joy Chamberlain, who said the nicest thing about my writing that I have ever heard. Thanks to all at Voyager Books /HarperCollins UK for everything that they do so very well.

  And lastly, there are those classic creators of the SFF work that first drove me to write. Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Margaret Atwood, Iain Banks, George Orwell, Harlan Ellison, John Wyndham, Alfred Bester . . . All wrote the stories that they wanted to tell, and never forgot that Story is the thing. You would do well to track down and read anything and everything that they’ve written.

  Also by James Smythe

  The Testimony

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE EXPLORER. Copyright © 2013 by James Smythe. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST EDITION

  ISBN 978-0-06-222941-0

  EPub Edition © JANUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062229519

  13 14 15 16 17 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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