To Steven Lloyd Chalker, in spite of whose best efforts this book got finished anyway.

I WRITE VERY FEW SERIES IN SPITE OF MY REPUTATION. OH, I write a lot of very long books, which publishers try to chop up into thirds and fourths and sell as "the latest series" but they're really not, and those who read them know it for the most part. The Dancing Gods books, however, are very much a series and so open-ended that even I have no idea when I start one if it's going to be my last.

For those who don't remember and those who came in late, the Dancing Gods is set in an alternate universe separated from ours in which the realities of our myths, legends, fantasies, and phantasms exist along with humankind. Connected by an ethereal realm known as the Sea of Dreams, we are influenced in our thoughts, fantasies, and imaginations by reflections of this alternate reality. The framework is Judeo-Christian in terms of good and evil, right and wrong, and so on, and while Heaven continues to stay out of things directly — so far — Hell, as usual, cheats.

This alternate Earth in fact was created as a reflection and in the backwash of the Genesis creation of our Earth, our universe, and God spent all His time, along with the time of the top angels, in setting ours up. Being merciful, He didn't destroy the other one, just assigned all minor angels and such to straighten it up. Being minor, of course, they weren't really up to the job and were prone to shortcuts. Magic, for example; it was more convenient than inventing a lot of physical laws. And how much easier to let the wood nymphs protect and keep the trees healthy, and the water sprites the seas, instead of actually having to deal with the complex sciences involved.