Zero History

THANKS:
My wife Deborah and daughter Claire were on-site first readers and sensitive critics, as
ever.
Susan Allison, to whom this book is dedicated, and who has been my editor in one
sense or another since the start of my career, of course was excellent with this one.
As indeed was Martha Millard, my literary agent since I first required one.
Jack Womack and Paul McAuley read pages almost daily, with Paul keeping very
particular track of London. Louis Lapprend was enlisted as Milgrim arrived in Paris, to
similar ends.
Cory Doctorow provided Sleight with Milgrim’s problematic Neo.
Johan Kugelberg very kindly put me up in the club on which Cabinet is loosely based,
and which is very nearly as peculiar.
Sean Crawford kept Winnie honest.
Larry Lunn gave me the order flow, when asked for a macguffin of ultimate scale. I
don’t know anyone else who could have.
Clive Wilson very kindly offered boots-on-the-ground Melbourne geography and
vegan bacon.
Douglas Coupland introduced me to the concept of the Vegas cube by showing me,
years ago, the one he’d built to write in.
Bruce Sterling, having been emailed exactly the wrong question about CCTV,
graciously extruded the concept of the ugly T-shirt in one of his characteristic,
demonically focused bursts of seemingly effortless imagination.
Michaela Sachenbacher and Errolson Hugh introduced me to the architecture of a
“secret” brand, and the passion behind it.
Everything I know about being a fashion model in the 21st Century I learned from
Jenna Sauers’ wonderful Jezebel memoir, “I Am The Anonymous Model.” Meredith’s
modeling career is based on it. Available with a quick Google.
Likewise available is Mark Gardiner’s very informative “Artful Dodgers,” from the
February 2009 issue of Motorcyclist, where I learned everything I know about London
motorcycle couriers.
Meredith’s line of shoes was modeled after the brand Callous, launched by Thomas
Fenning and Tomoaki Kobayashi in 2003, and which I gather met a somewhat similar
fate.
Thank you all.
—Vancouver, June 2010