Darwin's Blade

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge the help and advice of Wayne A. Simmons and Trudy Simmons in researching this novel. Thanks also go to the Warner Springs gliderport for letting me test my theories on aerial combat in one of their high-performance sailplanes, to The Accident Reconstruction Journal, to the United States Marines’ Scout Sniper School in Quantico, Virginia, and to Camp Pendleton in California. Acknowledgment should also be given to the writings of Stephen Pressfield on the Greek theories of phobologia—the study of fear and its mastery—and to Jim Land, whose sniper instruction manual may be the definitive work on the topic. To the artist in the Acura division of the Honda Motor Corporation who assembled the engine of my Acura NSX by hand, I can say only “Domō arigatō gozaimasu—Shūri o onegai dekimasu ka?”

All of the accidents investigated in Darwin’s Blade are based upon real accident reconstruction files but each is a composite—the combination of several investigations into one reconstruction used for fictional purposes. My thanks go to all of the accident investigators and accident reconstruction experts whose professionalism, research, and bizarre sense of humor have illuminated this novel. Any accuracy or verisimilitude in this book are due to them; the mistakes, unfortunately, are the author’s alone.