MiNRS (21 page)
Authors: Kevin Sylvester
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It takes so many people to make a book. (In fact, go see the acknowledgments for my book
Neil Flambé and the Bard’s Banquet
for a good sense of how a book is put together).
For this particular book . . .
Thanks go to Jon Anderson and Justin Chanda from Simon & Schuster, who let me pitch the idea to them over dinner at Remi in Manhattan. Thanks to my agent Michael Levine for helping get us together, and for so much more. (And thanks to the chefs at Remi for an amazing Funghi e Pasta di Tartufo Nero!)
Ruta Rimas took over the book and does what great editors do, kick my butt at every stage to make the book better. She is a great editor for sure, and I am extremely lucky she was there to help me.
Thanks as well to Dominic Harmon who designed the cover and Sonia Chaghatzbanian who designed the whole package.
And thanks to copyeditor Kaitlin Severini, who picked over the book with a fine-toothed pencil!
The seeds of MiNRs go way back in my life.
My brother Mike was obsessed with space. We’d all spend sweltering summers roaming the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, but Mike was the kid who had to have the model of the Enterprise on top of a 747.
Mike died before the first shuttle launch, but that love of space has stayed with the rest of us in different ways.
In fact, there are certain space things you need to know about me (and my family is sick of hearing me repeat).
2001: A Space Odyssey
is my favorite movie by far.
I saw
Star Wars
11 times in the summer of 1977. I’ve probably seen it a hundred times since, although
The Empire Strikes Back
is actually the best of the trilogy.
The Ewoks and the rereleased versions make me sad.
Greedo did not shoot first.
Jar-Jar Binks is an abomination.
And
Star Trek
. . . what can I say? The original TV series is quoted daily in my house.
Wrath of Khan
was the first movie we saw with my mum after Mike died, and it’s still one of the best films of all time. Heck, I even like the movie with the whales.
Later on it was
Firefly
, recommended by my brother Tim. Such a great show.
The Iron Giant
is my favorite animated movie. So thanks to Brad Bird for that.
National Geographic
gets special thanks from me. They made a map of the Universe that I taped to the ceiling above my bed. It showed both how insignificant we humans are, and how amazing it is that we exist. Life is an improbability, but something to be treasured and protected.
And I’d also implore anyone reading this book to take a truly hard look at the practices of mining companies around the world.
Exploiting children does happen in real life.
We need the materials, yes. But the people who mine the precious minerals deserve dignity and a part of the profits.
And that’s it for now. Look for more spaced-out thanks in MiNRs #2.
About the Author
KEVIN SYLVESTER
used to fall asleep staring at a National Geographic map of the universe pinned to the ceiling above his bed. It depressed the heck out of him. Visit Kevin at
kevinsylvesterbooks.com
.
VISIT US AT
authors.simonandschuster.com/Kevin-Sylvester
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MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2015 by Kevin Sylvester
Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Dominic Harmon
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ARGARET
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LDERRY
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OOKS
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Book design by Sonia Chaghatzbanian
The text for this book is set in ITC Garamond Std.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sylvester, Kevin.
Miners / Kevin Sylvester. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: “Twelve-year-old Christopher Nichols and his family live on a new planet, Perses, as colonists of Melming Mining’s Great Mission to save the Earth. When Landers, as the attackers are called, obliterate the colony to steal the metal and raw ore, Christopher and a small group of survivors are forced into the maze of mining tunnels below the surface of Perses”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4814-4039-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4814-4041-7 (eBook)
[1. Space colonies—Fiction. 2. Mines and mineral resources—Fiction. 3. Survival—Fiction. 4. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S98348Mi 2015
[Fic]—dc23 2014049696
Contents