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Acknowledgements

 Firstly,  I  would  like to extend grateful thanks  to  my  Alma
Mater
,  the  School  of Cognitive and Computing Sciences  in  the
University of Sussex.
 At the University of Sussex, particular thanks go to James Sharp
of  the  Waveguide Group for explaining  fibre  optic  technology
until his face turned blue;  to Andy Clark and Aaron Sloman,  for
introducing me to artificial intelligence in the first place; and
especially  to Jonathan Wakelin of the Low Temperature Group  for
his patience in giving me a whole series of crash courses in  the
behaviour  of superconductors  -  and,  incidentally,  destroying
several putative plot lines,  and forcing the creation of  others
on the spurious grounds that they conformed to the real world  of
science.
 In  addition,  I would like to extend my gratitude to  the  many
police  officers  in Merseyside and East Sussex who  assisted  me
with aspects of Wye's replacement legal system, particularly with
regard to the Three-R sentencing policy,  and with the  potential
effects of the reforms of the drug and consensual sex laws  which
Wye  initiated towards the end of  1999.  Sadly,  those  officers
informed  me they are contractually required not to provide  this
assistance, and so they wish to remain anonymous.

 Thanks also to Mark H. Baker, from whose Flight of the Navigator
I  stole...ahem,  'borrowed'...the  name  of  the  first  British
spacecraft;  to  Larry Niven,  William  Burroughs,  Robert  Anton
Wilson,  Terry  Pratchett,  Bill Watterson,  Harry  Harrison  and
Douglas Hofstadter,  for their books; and to Paul Simon, Dr Hook,
Billy Joel,  AC/DC,  Beethoven,  Tchaikovsky and John Lennon  for
their music.
 Very  special thanks go to the late Robert A.  Heinlein and  the
late Isaac Asimov,  each of whose writings - Heinlein through his
science fiction, and Asimov through both his science fact and the
Foundation novels - influenced me at a very early age.  They  are
greatly missed.
 Last  - but,  to abuse an old cliche,  not least - thanks to  my
parents,  George  &  Sylvia Stead,  for  everything.  And  to  my
grandparents,  Nathaniel  &  Eunice Bowden and John  &  Elizabeth
Stead, for everything else.

 Since nobody ever reads these acknowledgements sections, perhaps
this is a bad place to ask a couple of questions.  But I'm  going
to  ask them anyway.  Can you recall what happened to the  ex-Mrs
Wye?  Or to the nuclear devices which Graham planted at strategic
locations throughout the British Isles? I was only asking...

 All  errors  of fact,  misunderstandings or  omissions  are,  of
course,  my  own  -  and all political  and  philosophical  views
expressed  by the characters in The Bloodless Coup are held  only
by a deranged psychopath living somewhere in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
 Probably.
                                                       Roy Stead,
                                                        Brighton,
                                                12th January 1994
 

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