Acknowledgments
Lakewood, Colorado, USA
Earth Surface
I’d like, once again, to thank Toni Weisskopf for taking a chance on this series, and the whole team at Baen for helping bring it into the world as a series of physical objects people can actually buy. Engineer extraordinaire Gary Edwin Snyder is responsible for many of the ideas in this book, and for answering urgent technical questions at all hours of the day and night. Early, horrible drafts of this book were endured by Marie DesJardin, Ember Randall, Glen Cox, Pat Smythe, Peter Sartucci, Eneasz Brodski, Ronnie Seagren, and Ondine Winkless. The later drafts were helped along by Bruce Hall, Kathee Jones, Greg Hyde, and John Morse. I also owe great thanks to Dave Seeley, whose cover art was so meticulously imagined that it forced me to rewrite the text in places. This particular book can be judged by its cover.
Special thanks also to John Barnes and Connie Willis for moral support, and to Evangeline for, you know, everything.