continents submerged/the decay of a mouse/the aurora borealis/the end of the great-mouthed beasts/the sun grow dark.
We recreated our spore form and drifted outside of the atmosphere in all directions and if you are hearing this then you know
how far we have travelled.
This is a data/voice algorithm designed to be decipherable by any intelligence we could,
at this early stage,
imagine might exist.
If you can perceive this, the change has already begun.
The change will be peaceful, so long as you understand what we were, what we became, and what you will soon be.
First, I want to offer my sincere gratitude to the Wicklund and Johnson families for offering their enduring support and encouragement. None of this exists without you. And deepest thanks are due to my wife and son, who allowed me back into their lives even after I disappeared to a series of hotels and basements every weekend until this novel was completed.
Second, heartfelt thanks go out to the following folks: Cody Goodfellow and Cameron Pierce for the late-stage editorial assist and inspiration; David Wong and Laird Barron, for taking time away from their brilliant work to read this book and offering such immensely kind words for the cover; J. David Osborne, for keeping my brain from stagnation and challenging me and making me laugh; the Swallowdown Press authors, for being graceful and supportive when I decided to put publishing on hiatus to write; Sam Pool, for the series of bar meetings and listening sessions which pushed this project into overdrive; Stephen Graham Jones, for inspiring me and convincing me that genre doesn’t exist (and giving me an incomparable point of comparison to prevent slacking); the Lemley family, for letting me work on this project in their basement even after I told them the FBI had visited me during the research stage; to Josh Boone and Mollie Glick, for showing up at precisely the right time and letting me know I just might survive as a writer; Christopher O’Riley, Ashley Crawford, Nancy Hightower, Gabino Iglesias, and Michael Seidlinger, for your support and the subversive act of introducing my writing to people who trust you; to Jack Ketchum, for proving that sometimes your heroes are even cooler than you’d believed.
Third, thanks to the following musicians and albums for creating the headspace in which I could tolerate sitting for long lonely hours typing madness into a tiny machine: Ghostface Killah’s Supreme Clientele, Basement Jaxx’s Remedy, Purity Ring’s Shrines, Tool’s Aenima, Amon Tobin’s Live at Donaufestival, and the collected works of SPL, El-P, Christopher O’Riley, Vitamin String Quartet, Philip Glass, and Noisia.
Fourth, big thanks to the guy at the beer station at Carts on Foster who “accidentally” overfills my growler and then hands me the excess 12oz over-pour. You, sir, are a national treasure.
Finally, of course and as always, I want to thank You, for taking time out of your life to join me in this very strange place. So—Thank You.
JRJ,
June 2014
Jeremy Robert Johnson is the author of the Wonderland Book Award-winning WE LIVE INSIDE YOU, the cult hit ANGEL DUST APOCALYPSE, the Stoker-nominated novel SIREN PROMISED (w/Alan M. Clark), and the end-of-the-world freak-out EXTINCTION JOURNALS. His fiction has been acclaimed by authors like Jack Ketchum and Chuck Palahniuk and has appeared internationally in numerous anthologies and magazines. In 2008 he worked with The Mars Volta to tell the story behind their Grammy-winning album The Bedlam in Goliath. In 2010 he spoke about weirdness and metaphor as a survival tool at the Fractal 10 conference in Medellin, Colombia (where fellow speakers included DJ Spooky, an MIT bio-engineer, and a doctor who explained the neurological aspirations of a sponge). He is working on a number of new books. You’ll just have to trust him on this.
www.jeremyrobertjohnson.com
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