t is with a sad and heavy heart that I relate the latest news in my career: After a two-year battle with cancer, Jo Clayton has died. Besides being a wonderful lady and a wonderful author, not to mention a person who I wish I'd had a chance to know better, Jo was also someone who always thought of her friends, even at the very end. Katharine Kerr told me how much Jo admired my work (Jo edited my stories for Kit's Enchanted Forests and The Shimmering Door when Kit was too bogged down with personal life to concentrate on the anthologies) and that Jo wanted to do something to help me in my career. When she got better, of course, but nothing ever can go quite as you plan it in this sad world. As such, Kit, as Jo's literary executor, asked me to finish the final book of Jo's Drums of Chaos trilogy. Jo left about two hundred pages of manuscript, as well as extensive notes, and I am glad to report that I have finished the novel and it is now available in stores. I think the story is now the way Jo would have wanted, and I hope readers enjoy the conclusion of the trilogy and the final work of a brilliant writer and wonderful person.

hank you, Jo. I hardly knew ye, but you are too soon gone from this earth, and will be sorely missed.

f anyone wishes to read more about Jo and her work, please visit Javanne's Jo Clayton web page.