Preface to the hardcover edition of Seduction of a Wanton Dreamer:

This novel is a testament to pioneers who were in touch with the roar of the universe: people such as Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, whose views on the power of myth and the immanence of the Collective Unconscious have continually influenced my thought.

Although Seduction of a Wanton Dreamer is not autobiographical, it could not have been written without the experiences of a lifetime. Most recently, in 2004, just as I had finished this work, found an agent, and begun marketing it, I was diagnosed with stage 4 head-neck cancer.

The near-death dreams and hallucinations brought on by the cancer and its radical treatment made me realize that, even though I had been striving to achieve a mythic catharsis in my writing, I had been too tame in expressing the view that existence—if not life, then at least some form of consciousness—continues after death.

Following my recovery, I returned to the book with renewed vigor and revised the story. Now it is my hope that Seduction of a Wanton Dreamer truly succeeds in portraying the “roar of the universe.”

Richard Beeson, 2009