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SCIENCE FICTION WRITER  ROBERT J. SAWYER  Best Novel Hugo and Nebula Award Winner SFWRITER.COM > Novels > Illegal Alien > Acknowledgments Annotated Dedication and Acknowledgments   Illegal Alien     Dedication   For Edo and Roberta van Belkom, with thanks and friendship   Acknowledgments   Amici curiae in the creation of this novel include: ["Amici curiae" is Latin for "friends of the court" — persons not party to the current litigation who advise the court] my wife Carolyn Clink my editors, Susan Allison at Ace and Jane Johnson at HarperCollins UK [who bought the US and UK editions, respectively; Susan commissioned the novel from a brief outline, and pushed it very enthusiastically] Asbed Bedrossian, who was my host during my visit to Los Angeles [and provided lots of follow-up information after I left; Asbed works at the University of Southern California, where much of the book's action takes place. I actually went to L.A. three times during the writing of this book; Asbed put me up in his home during one of the trips] Richard M. Gotlib, barrister and solicitor, sessional lecturer at Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto [and a high-school buddy; he checked the book for legal accuracy] Professor Edward F. Guinan, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania [one of the world's foremost experts on the Alpha Centauri system] Dr. Ariel Reich, Esq., of the Silicon Valley office of the firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP [both a lawyer and physicist; Starplex is dedicated to him. Besides reading and commenting on the manuscript, he loaned me some of his California law books.] Dena Rosenberg Thaler, J.D. ["J.D." is juris doctor — doctor of law; Dena is a lawyer in San Francisco who read the book in manuscript, to check my legal procedures] Ted Bleaney [my friend who reads all my books in manuscript; The Terminal Experiment is dedicated to him] Linda C. Carson [a Kitchener, Ontario, playwright] David Livingstone Clink [my brother-in-law] Richard Curtis [Illegal Alien was the last book Richard sold as my agent] Paul Fayter [a United Church minister, who teaches a course entitled "Science and Science Fiction in Social Context" at Toronto's York University; he provided some interesting background documents on possible alien moral philosophy] Karl Fuss [co-owner of a court transcription service, who read the manuscript to make sure my trial scenes were believable] James Alan Gardner [SF writer, and husband of Linda C. Carson, mentioned above] Terence M. Green [Toronto SF writer; Frameshift is dedicated to him and his wife, Merle Casci] Howard Miller [proofreader] John-Allen Price [technothriller writer and military expert in Lewiston, New York; he helped me with the scenes set aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk] Alan B. Sawyer [my brother, who read the book in manuscript] Jean-Louis Trudel [astronomy expert, who spent a lot of time helping me work out the orbital dynamics of the Alpha Centauri system] If any errors remain in the text, mea culpa. ["Mea culpa" is Latin for "I'm at fault;" a standard legal term. I took five year-long courses in Latin, but rarely get to use it . . .]   More Good Reading   Other dedications and acknowledgments More About Illegal Alien

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