~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright 1994 by Daniel Keys Moran. All rights reserved. I, Daniel Keys Moran, "The Author," hereby release this text as freeware. It may be transmitted as a text file anywhere in this or any other dimension, without reservation, so long as the story text is not altered IN ANY WAY. No fee may be charged for such transmission, save handling fees comparable to those charged for shareware programs. THIS WORK MAY NOT BE PRINTED OR PUBLISHED IN A BOOK, MAGAZINE, ELECTRONIC OR CD-ROM STORY COLLECTION, OR VIA ANY OTHER MEDIUM NOW EXISTING OR WHICH MAY IN THE FUTURE COME INTO EXISTENCE, WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR. THIS WORK IS LICENSED FOR READING PURPOSES ONLY. ALL OTHER RIGHTS ARE RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR. DESCRIPTION: Original Afterward/About the Authors to several of my novels. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AFTERWARD FOR EMERALD EYES Hi there. Welcome to the Afterword. If you're like me, you probably turned to the Afterword first, before reading the book that it is the Afterword to. If you have done this, . Go back to the beginning, and read the book. It's no fair just skimming the good parts, either, you must read the whole thing or you can't read the Afterword. Hi there. Are you back now? (And if you're reading this even though you haven't read the book, well, okay, except you should know you are about to incur a shitload of really terrible karma.) Welcome to the Continuing Time. When I was thirteen years old, I had already been writing for four years. This is not to say that I was writing anything worth reading; but I was writing, constantly. It was compulsive behavior. I knew I wasn't writing anything worth reading, but I wrote regardless. My sister, Jodi Anne Moran, was my only loyal audience, and even she could not, or would not, read any of my longer pieces. “This is bad,” she would say. I'm suspicious of coincidence, but here it is; I have only once in my life kept a diary. It lasted for perhaps a month, and I grew bored with it. During the month that I kept that diary, I created the Continuing Time. It says so, right there in faded green ink. I had about eight series going at that time, in my head and on paper. Leaving out any of the potentially embarrassing details regarding plotting and characterization, three of those series concerned themselves as follows: 1) A trader, named Camber, circa 3,000 A.D., who found himself in over his head, embroiled in a war with these really bad news demigods who were waging what they called the Time Wars; 2) A warrior telepath named Chauki; she was a Lord of the Royal House of November, circa 3,000 A.D. or thereabouts. 3) This other telepath, named Denice, and her good buddy, a thief named Ripper, who became a politician, in the mid-21st century. There it is. One morning (according to the diary) I was home from school, sick, watching I Love Lucy and writing in this neat new diary I was keeping. Apparently I had a fever, which, looking back, seems appropriate. I was working on a story about Chauki November; whatever it was, it did not survive, and I do not remember today what it might have concerned. But I wanted to give her a romantic interest, and none of the chumps who usually hung out in her stories were good enough for her. Trader Camber, now Camber Tremodian, presented himself. Before that instance, I had never before merged together any of my series; I simply kept inventing new ones when I got bored. But the details of Camber's universe meshed well with the details of Chauki November's, and in the course of reconciling the two series I created a universe with a degree of depth—of —that was greater than the sum of its parts. I was struck, I think, more than anything else, by how these unconnected storylines had complemented each other. Looking through my remaining stories, one character leapt out at me; Denice Castanaveras, a telepath whose people had been destroyed, was, obviously, Chauki November's ancestor. In the course of that morning, cross-connecting the details of Camber's universe with Chauki November's, and then working out the way in which Denice Castanaveras' universe had, over the course of a millennium, become Camber and Chauki's, I invented the Continuing Time, essentially as it stands today. For a very long time, I did not write any Continuing Time stories. I my writing skills were insufficient; and were, even then, an order of magnitude more complex than any of my other stories. Instead I planned, and planned, and planned. Outlines of stories, chronologies of events; I knew the date of birth, to the day, for each of the thousands of characters who appeared in any of Most of the time I knew the dates of their deaths, as well. The notebooks in which I kept my work covered over two thousand pages of outlines, lists of names and places, biographies, and indexes. I had three different card catalogues, back in the days before I bought my first computer. The Continuing Time grew, and changed. In my mind, before I ever put words down on paper, I grew to know, as I know the members of my own family, the characters who populated the Continuing Time. The thief called Ripper, who became a politician, was a bit too unlikely; I split him into a pair of characters, Douglass Ripper, Jr., the politician introduced in , and, of course, Trent the Uncatchable. I was seventeen years old before I first tried to write a Continuing Time story: "Sixty-two thousand years before the birth of Yeshua ha Notzri, whom later humans knew as Jesus the Christ, the Time Wars ended, for reasons which no sentient being now knows. With that ending, the Continuing Time began." That was how the first story started; I had already written three books of varyingly bad quality when I wrote , and learned that I was not yet talented enough to write about the Continuing Time. It happened again when I was eighteen, and I wrote , a story about Trent the Uncatchable, and again, when I was nineteen, and I wrote , an eighty thousand word story about the early days of the great House of November. It has been only five years since I last wrote about the Continuing Time. The novel which you've just finished is only the first novel in the thirty-three volumes which comprise . I am a better writer today than I was five years ago; in years to come I will, I hope, surpass what I have written here, and by no small measure. I hope to become a much better writer than I am now. I have been writing, now, for fifteen years. I have been planning the Continuing Time for over eleven. I cannot today read what I wrote only five years ago without wincing. Perhaps five years from now the same will be true of what I have done with . But you have to start somewhere. Put your sunglasses on, chuckles, and take a deep breath, 'cause here we go. Daniel Keys Moran Southern California, 1987 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ABOUT THE AUTHOR FOR -- "The Long Run" (As written before the Bantam Bio Butchers got their hands on it.) Daniel Keys Moran is a twenty-four year old Southern Californian. Jack Smith, columnist for the L.A. Times, wrote in a recent column that natives of Los Angeles, you know, the “City of the Angels”—who are generally known as Los Angeleans—ought actually to be known, simply, as Angels. So, then, the author is, basically, yes, an , yes, that's what it must be. The author's prime goal in life is to become the world's greatest science fiction writer, and the richest one as well. He lives in North Hollywood, with Holly Thomas Moran, whom he recently found himself getting more or less married to, along with a couple quadzillion books and magazines, a middle-aged computer named D'Artagnan, and a hot young stud computer whom they don't have a name for yet. (Update: Computer's name is Raoul. And if you don't know what that means, the book's name is and it is the sequel to .) They did have two of the author's sisters staying with them for a while, but they got rid of them. Now his cousin from Pennsylvania and his cousin's best friend from Pennsylvania are sleeping in the living room instead. His role models are Mister Spock, Captain Kirk, Isaac Asimov, Humphrey Bogart, and Hunter S. Thompson. When he was eight years old he read , and when he was twelve he read , which is another explanation for how he turned out. Other goals include running for God, on a platform that includes more sunshine, rain on Sundays (for the farmers and those who like to take walks in the stuff) and an abolition of parking tickets, the goddamned evil drooling parking enforcers, and the fiction of Harold Robbins; also being the first American to be knighted by the Queen of England. After all, John Blackthorne got to be a Samurai. He has stopped waiting for to come out. Doesn't look likely at this point, does it? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ABOUT THE AUTHOR -- The Last Dancer Daniel Keys Moran lives somewhere in Los Angeles, though the actual location is a closely guarded secret. He is the author of the exceedingly well-written Tales of the Continuing Time, and as many of you have suspected, does in fact much resemble his very popular character Trent the Uncatchable, except that he is more handsome and also wittier. He's recently been hanging out with a new nephew, Kevin, The Phone-Cord Chewing Devil Baby of Doom. He's a Mondo Huge baby and will doubtless play in the NBA some day soon. He already dribbles real good. This was a bad year for the Lakers, the Once and Future NBA Champions. Moran's hanging tight, though. Except for one gutless Game 5 no-call by refs in Phoenix, the '93 Lakers would have upset the team with the best regular season record in the NBA during the first round of the playoffs, and doubtless gone on to win the finals. His favorite one-panel comic: Writer, pipe in one hand, at table in restaurant, smiles charmingly at woman companion and says, "But enough about me. Let's talk about my books." Moran is working on a new Continuing Time book about Trent. You won't have to wait as long for it as you waited for . He promises. He was Otherwise Occupied for a while, but he's better now. His last several books have been so popular that Bantam allows Moran the rare privilege of writing, unedited, the "About the Authors" in the back of his books. (Update: well, I can dream.) He made up a map of the Great Wheel of Existence for this book, but the satans in eyeshades at Bantam took it and sent it to the art department to have it redone. So if it makes no goddamn sense at all, it's their fault. Not mine. I mean his. Updates from previous About the Authors: the LaserJet with the Snoopy-as-Joe-Cool sticker on it is on its last legs. The Snoopy sticker will get salvaged, though, after it dies, and transferred to the new printer, whatever that ends up being. Also, The Revenge of the Jedi is still not out.