Change of Command

Acknowledgements

As always, quite a few people helped with technical bits. Certain parts of this book could not have been written without the help of the fencing group . . . I leave it to them to figure out who contributed which bit of necessary information or advice. David Watson helped choreograph some of the fights and advised on metallurgy, and Kathleen Jones did yeoman work in the structural engineering of a very complicated plot. Susan and Andrew both provided useful information on points of high finance I would never have thought of (stock parking?); Allen helped with naval procedure. Other assistance came from a panel at the Baltimore WorldCon, but unfortunately a computer crash six weeks later robbed me of all the names, email addresses, and even snail-mail addresses (I had put them in the computer, of course . . . and since it was the mail function that crashed . . . ) But they have my gratitude, though I can’t thank them properly unless we run into each other at another convention. Their input changed one section greatly; remaining mistakes are all mine, including having put their addresses in a computer about to lose its memory so that I couldn’t thank them properly.