'I’m friends with this hot young writer. He’s widely published, prodigious, pretty, too. I was at a massive international convention with him earlier this year, sneaking into parties we hadn’t been invited to, the crush of the hotel suites full of conversation with the biggest names in science fiction and fantasy. Standing in the corner with him, sinking free ciders plucked from a bathtub full of ice, when some publisher or big-name writer or other would come and interrupt our conversation to talk to him.' (Introduction)