When you live with a story for long enough, it saturates your life and you lose your objectivity and go a little bit crazy. You stop seeing the edges of the thing, so you’ve got nothing to judge it against. At that point, you need other people who either (a) love or understand the story or (b) are tolerably fond of you and will put up with you through endless repetitions of “So what if I do this …?” I had lots of these people, and I can only repay them with inadequate thanks and the odd pint or glass of red wine. My wife, Lin, and our wonderful kids, Louise, Ben and Davey. Colm McCarthy and Camille Gatin, who were with me on the amazing journey that was The Girl With All the Gifts, and who changed my life beyond recognition. My brilliant editors Anne Clarke and Anna Jackson and Jenni Hill, along with copy-editors Joanna Kramer and Sophie Hutton-Squire. My agent, Meg Davis. Publicists and people-who-magically-make-things-happen Gemma Conley-Smith and Nazia Khatun. Foreign rights wonder-worker, Andy Hine. My brother, Dave, and his awesome wife, Jacque. My best friend from my teens to the present day, Chris Poppe. Once you start a list like this, of course, you realise very quickly that it has the capacity to go on for ever. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes an army to keep an author more or less sane and more or less standing. If you’re in that army, you know you’re there. I don’t deserve you, but I’m so happy to have you.