The Sword of the Lady

Acknowledgements

The saga continues and grows—for a solitary business, you need a lot of help!

Thanks to my friends who are also first readers:

To Steve Brady, for assistance with dialects and British background, and also natural history of all sorts.

Thanks also to Kier Salmon, for once again helping with the beautiful complexities of the Old Religion, and with local details for Oregon. And for further use of BD!

To Diana L. Paxson, for help and advice, and for writing the beautiful ‘Westria’ books, among many others. If you liked the Change novels, you’ll probably enjoy the hell out of the Westria books—I certainly did, and they were one of the inspirations for this series. Also thanks for permission to use the lyrics of the songs in chapters 0,00, and 000, CDs of which may be obtained by going to www.westria.org

To Dale Price, help with Catholic organization, theology and praxis.

To Brenda Sutton, for multitudinous advice.

To Will Sanders, for putting me in stitches with Princess Yumping Yimminy; read his excellent mystery “Smoke” for his take on this—unbelievably—real-life character.

To Melinda Snodgrass, Daniel Abraham, Sage Walker, Emily Mah, Terry England, George R.R. Martin, Walter Jon Williams, Vic Milan, Jan Stirling and Ian Tregellis of Critical Mass, for constant help and advice as the book was under construction.

Thanks to John Miller, good friend, writer and scholar, for many useful discussions, for loaning me some great books, and for some really, really cool old movies. And to Gail Gerstner-Miller, ditto. Also the steak pie recipe was delicious.

Special thanks to Heather Alexander, bard and balladeer, for permission to use the lyrics from her beautiful songs which can be—and should be!—ordered at www.heatherlands.com Run, do not walk, to do so.

Thanks again to William Pint and Felicia Dale, for permission to use their music, which can be found at http://members.aol.com/pintndale/ and should be, for anyone with an ear and salt-water in their veins.

And to Three Weird Sisters—Gwen Knighton, Mary Crowell, Brenda Sutton, and Teresa Powell—whose alternately funny and beautiful music can be found at http://www.threeweirdsisters.com/

And to Heather Dale for permission to quote the lyrics of her songs, whose beautiful (and strangely appropriate!) music can be found atwww.HeatherDale.com, and is highly recommended. The lyrics are wonderful and the tunes make it even better.

Much overdue thanks to Russell Galen, my agent, who has been an invaluable help and friend for a decade now. By a stunning non-coincidence, my career has shot up like a sapling in this period. We make a good team; not only is he smart as a whip on the business side, but his advice on literary matters and on the conjunction between the two has been spot-on.