Star Trek: The Original Series: The Rings of Time

Acknowledgments

Colonel Shaun Geoffrey Christopher appeared briefly in my Eugenics Wars novels a decade ago. I always meant to tell the rest of his story someday, but I never realized that it would take me ten years to get around to it!

That this book has finally blasted off into print is thanks to the invaluable folks at Mission Control, including my editors, Margaret Clark and Ed Schlesinger, and my agent, Russ Galen. I also want to thank my fellow Trek experts, such as Christopher Bennett, David George, Dave Mack, John Ordover, Marco Palmieri, Paul Simpson, and the gang at trekbbs.com, for letting me pick their brains and bounce ideas off them, even if some of those ideas took some wild ricochets. And I thank Paul Abell, a genuine rocket scientist, for generously offering to answer any questions I had about real-life space exploration. I probably should have taken more advantage of him! Thanks also to the Oxford Public Library, for letting me raid its shelves for books on Saturn and space travel and for letting me (and my dog) take advantage of their air-conditioning during a truly ferocious heat wave.

Finally, and as always, I could not have completed this mission without my invaluable copilot, Karen Palinko, and our four furry stowaways, Churchill, Henry, Sophie, and Lyla.