I also take particular, if bittersweet, pleasure, for several reasons, in knowing that it was Jim's idea to reissue this book. First, because it was his idea, and it was the last book of mine that he'll ever schedule. Second, because Jim was suggesting the reissue of a David Weber fantasy novel, when he could have been inserting another science-fiction novel into the schedule. And third, because I've always had a deep respect for Jim's instincts when it came to scheduling and positioning books.

When Toni and I first discussed this, neither of us had any idea that we were going to lose Jim. Because of that, we'd both rather looked foreword to twitting Jim (relatively) gently in the foreword, since he was always in something of two minds where my fantasy novels were concerned. He liked them, and their sales were certainly respectable, but he pointed out-correctly-that I'm rather better known for my military science fiction than as a fantasy author. As such, the sales of Bahzell's books have never been as good as, say, the sales figures for Honor Harrington's books. In other words, as he used to tell me, I was taking a cut in pay, as it were, whenever I sat down to write about Bahzell.

He was right, of course. He tended to be right about things like that with sometimes irritating frequency. And as a publisher-not to say a shameless huckster, which he also was, bless him-he was quite rightly concerned about the bottom line. As a matter of fact, that was one of his jobs as publisher, since some writers (oh, I'm not talking about myself, of course!) experience some difficulty counting above ten with their shoes on. The remarkable thing about it was that even though the sales figures on these books were lower than those on most of my science fiction, Jim still found room on the Baen Books schedule for three of them, with two more still under contract. He knew they were important to me, you see, and that-bottom line or not-made them important to him, as well.