We weren’t sure that we were going to be able to make it available for preorder, but here it is, and I am absolutely terrified. For sure, the prospect of you and everyone else getting Carrier in your hands and its words funneling into your eyeports excites me, but with each moment it takes further from my grasp, I can’t help but feel more apprehensive.
I’m not a parent, but I imagine this must be something akin to what parents feel as they hug their children and send them off to school for the first time. I have loved this thing and put everything that I could into it, and now it has to go out and face the scrutiny of the world.
One of the most comforting comments I ever got about this kind of anxiety came from Craig DiLouie. I won’t quote him for fear that my memory will butcher it, but I’ll paraphrase. Craig once told me that, at some point, you just have to push a story away, and it will either suck or it won’t. I think that comment resonated with me because of how casual it is. That attitude seems to shrug off the prospect of a novel’s failure. But the truth is there’s no way it will fail. I don’t mean that I think it will skyrocket to the top of the NY Times Bestseller List. I mean that it will most likely be a mixed bag. Someone will hate it, but someone will love it.
Someone will love it.
Part of me can’t wait to see what people think of it, whether they love or hate it. No one is more acquainted with the flaws and rough spots of this novel, but I’m unapologetic about putting it out there. I just hope the people who pick it up are gentle in their judgement, and I hope they see the things that drew me to it in the first place.
I think there are some really good things in here, and I hope you pick it up and agree. And if you don’t, that’s okay, too.