Baen neglected to publish the Author’s Afterword in the hardcover edition of Ribbon Dance.  The afterword does appear in the ebook edition and will also appear in the mass market reprint when it’s issued, next year.

The below is provided as a courtesy to those people who have  purchased the hardcover edition.

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Afterword to Ribbon Dance
Sharon Lee

As some of you may have noticed, I’m a writer. In a very real sense, words are my life, and sentences my business.

Despite which, there was one sentence I hoped I would never have to write.

Steve has died.

You may have also noticed that we don’t always get what we hope for.

Steve and I were together, as best friends, partners, and co-writers, for more than forty years, until his death in February 2024. Ribbon Dance is our 104th collaboration, our 30th co-written novel; the 26th set in the Liaden Universe®.

You might also be expecting me to say that it’s the last book we wrote together, but that would simply be untrue.

Quite apart from the fact that there would be no Liaden Universe® as we’ve all come to know it, without Steve’s input, genius, and wit, he and I had been doing the work of the house, planning future stories, plotting the routes we would need to fly in order to provide our characters, and our readers, with a satisfying outcome, and a safe place to land.

Realizing that there are no guarantees, it is my intention to continue to write Liaden books. New titles will be published as by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, because that will be nothing more nor less than the truth.

Thank you all for your support, of our work, and of us, down through the years. We always said – and this is not mere hyperbole – that we have the best readers in this universe, and the next one, too.

If you have a moment, now might be a good time to hug the people you love, and tell them what’s in your heart.

Sharon Lee
Cat Farm and Confusion Factory
February 2024