PANTHEONS

Dedication

My wife is 18 weeks pregnant. When they tried to hear the baby’s heartbeat in the hospital through the sonogram today, our unborn child just kept moving around with so much energy it just melted my heart. When they finally told my wife and me that we were going to have a boy, I swelled with pride; it was the HAPPIEST DAY of my life.

Nathan, my son, even before you were born, I loved you. This book is dedicated to you.

Acknowledgements

    I want to thank Les, my agent, for encouraging me to write this book in the first place, and my dad, Ernst Sr., who read the chapters as I wrote them and kept asking me for more. Also I want to thank my wife, Aba, who listened to me talk for hours about the gods and goddesses of various pantheons, and I’m very grateful that she was always so understanding whenever I glued myself to my computer typing away whenever the story took me away. To my mother who passed down her love of reading and writing to me, thanks. Also a special thank you to all my siblings: Dr. Pascal, David, Myrna (thanks for all of your good advice), and Jonathan. I want to thank my sister-in-law Da, my wonderful niece, April, and my brother-in-law, Jeremiah (who discussed the myths of the gods with me on many occasions). A special thank you to Gladys Atwell, my publicist; Amy Eye who did the edits for the first edition; and Katy Sozaeva who edited it for the second edition; Rickie T. Burns who has claimed the title of “my biggest fan”; and Ninfa Hayes for her support. I want to thank God for making my dream of becoming a writer come true.