On (GollanczF.)

by Adam Roberts

  Various breeds of insect, particularly the variety known to inhabitants as ‘claw-caterpils’, have developed habits of predation upon non-insect fauna, including human beings. These creatures are strongly attracted to the smell of blood and will eat all components of their prey. They have evolved a variety of coagulant saliva. This prevents the blood from draining out of victims and being lost off the face of the world, and enables the insects to maximise their feast. Claw-caterpils prefer densely forested areas and are rarely seen outside meshwood or tanglewood locations.

  1 Tighe, falling from his village ledge, fell more slowly than a sky-diver would in the present world for this reason; although such falls will nevertheless, of course, usually be fatal.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Simon Spanton, for excellent editorial and other advice; Malcolm Edwards, Oisin Murphy-Lawless, Steve Calcutt, Rachel Cummings, Abraham Kawa, Tony Atkins, Julie Roberts, David Harris, Bob Eaglestone, Roger Levy, Cathy Preece and Sarah Kennedy. For advice on gravitational matters, I’d like to thank the workers at the Gravitational Institute of Staines, particularly Robert Ayamanski and Francesca Frenacapan.

  This is a book about precariousness, and it necessarily reflects the precariousness of my life during the last years of the last millennium; but none of the people listed here bears any responsibility for that.

  This book is for R.