SOMETIME LONG AGO, just after the rocks stopped falling and the seas of magma began to skin over, I proposed this idea to Sharyn November, via Ashley Grayson, and pointed out that I really didn’t know how it would end. This became one of the most accurate prophecies of my life.
I am grateful to both of them for their patience while I found my way to the ending, and deeply grateful at having been told, repeatedly, Good is more important than soon. Saying that to me was probably the height of commercial irresponsibility, but it was very much what the book needed.
Shelly Perron, the copy editor, greatly reduced the number of errors in this text (the remainder are all my fault, for those of you keeping track), and also asked a very large number of very smart questions that caused me to be much clearer about many different things.
Obviously this book would not exist without ideas that I learned about from Buzz Aldrin; the chance to work with him was one of the reasons why I wouldn’t have wanted any other profession.
This book had a very large number of titles before someone realized that Losers in Space was what the title should be; none of us can remember who first said, “Why don’t we just call it that?” So thanks and a shout-out to the Unknown Marketer.
Howard Davidson, lifetime promoter of the hard in hard SF, nitpicked, which was invaluable. I got more things right because of Howard; I’m quite sure I didn’t get everything right, and that was because of me.
About the very ending: the last two paragraphs were inspired by and are deliberate hommage to the conclusion of John Steele Gordon’s wonderful book Overlanding, a book which, when I was in my early twenties, held more romance than Mutiny on the Bounty, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, and The Prisoner of Zenda, combined, and which was indirectly responsible for some of the most treasured memories in my life. Sadly, much of the practical information in Overlanding is now hopelessly dated, most copies are long out of circulation, and it reflects a world that no longer exists. But since I myself am hopelessly dated, almost entirely out of circulation, and reflective of a world that no longer exists, I do hope someone, someday, will bring out a new edition. Meanwhile, if you see it, grab it.