The Thousand Names
Read The Thousand Names Online
Authors: Django Wexler
T
HE
T
HOUSAND
N
AMES
Book One of the Shadow Campaigns
DJANGO WEXLER
A ROC BOOK
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright © Django Wexler, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Wexler, Django. The thousand names/Django Wexler. p. cm.—(Shadow campaigns; bk. 1)
ISBN 978-1-101-60951-4
1. Soldiers—Fiction. 2. Imaginary wars and battles—Fiction. I. Title. PS3623.E94T46 2013 813'.6—dc23 2013003941
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
Contents
For Rachel and Stanley, who believed
I
have a lot of people to thank, so let me get right to it, in roughly chronological order.
This is not, in any sense, a historical novel. At best it was
inspired
by history, in the loosest Hollywood sense of the word. But it began with my interest in history, and the inspiration for that is almost entirely traceable to a series of late-night conversations with Neal Altman and Konstantin Koptev (among others) after sessions of CMU’s Vermillion Anime Club.
Neal’s impromptu mini-lectures sparked an interest that has turned into a lifelong hobby. Later, he got me into historical war–
gaming and introduced me to the equally knowledgeable Jim Naughton. The two of them happily lent me stacks of reading material, and from that (as usual) everything else followed. So many thanks to Neal, Jim, and everyone else who pushed lead in Jim’s basement. Keep rolling sixes, guys.
I read many wonderful histories, but a few stand out as particularly inspiring. David G. Chandler’s
The Campaigns of Napoleon
probably led in as straight a line to
The Thousand Names
as anything did. He manages to make real events as thrilling to read about as anything in fiction, and it leaves me in awe. When I started working on the larger context of the series, Simon Schama’s
Citizens
provided a similar service. Those two, and all the other hardworking historians who don’t get to just make this stuff up like I do, have my everlasting gratitude.
In more recent history, I have been assisted at every turn by any number of talented and sympathetic individuals:
Dr. John Baer helped me through a very difficult time, and without him I’m not sure this book would ever have reached its first draft.
Elisabeth Fracalossi did yeoman’s work as the alpha reader, getting the chapters hot off the presses and helping me through the rough patches. Knowing that at least
one
person is waiting for you to finish is invaluable.
My awesome beta readers provided wonderful feedback at every stage. In no particular order, thanks to Prentice Clark, Janelle Stanley, Carl Meister, Amanda Davis, Dan Blandford, and Lu Huan.
I never used to understand why, in their acknowledgments, authors always sound so pathetically grateful to their agents. Now I understand: they have magical powers. Seth Fishman’s wizardry is particularly strong, and it’s increasingly clear that signing on with him is probably the best single decision I ever made.
Alongside Seth was the great team at the Gernert Company—Rebecca Gardner, Will Roberts, and Andy Kifer—and Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein in the UK. My deepest thanks to all.
Last chronologically, but in no other sense, there are my editors, Jessica Wade at Roc and Michael Rowley at Del Rey UK. Their help made this book immeasurably better, and they managed the difficult trick of coediting wonderfully. My thanks as well to the talented teams at both publishers, who don’t get to put their names on the book but who make sure that every little bit of it shines.
Finally, to the ghost of a certain
petit caporal
, I can only offer my sincere apologies.
The Thousand Names
