"David Drake - RCN 04 - Glory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

Andre Norton gets a specific note of thanks for noting how useful lizards could be as pets on a

spaceship. I say 'specific' because I probably wouldn't be writing adventure stories of this sort if I hadn't

read Andre's when I met science fiction.

I had computer problems. My son Jonathan fixed them. An acknowledgments page reminds me

of how very lucky I have been in life.

My wife Jo bore with me as I wrote another novel and my immediate neighborhood became a

deepening morass of books, documents, and pictures. (I use a lot of references while I'm working.) I try

to clean up my mess in the short intervals between novels, but I'm aware that it isn't a perfect existence

for an ordinarily neat person.

My thanks generally to all those who've brightened my life by their presence in it.



AUTHOR'S NOTE

The general political background of the RCN series is that of Europe in the mid-18 th century, with

admixtures of late-Republican Rome. (There's a surprising degree of congruence between British and

Roman society in those periods.)

Major plot elements in The Way to Glory, however, come from the 19 th century. Those of you

who know some American history may note echoes of the Somers Mutiny, and if you're really

well-versed you'll understand how greatly I simplified the details of political factions both in Washington

(Whigs, Democrats, and the intimates of President Tyler whose own party had repudiated him) and in the

US Navy. Real history is a great deal more complex than anything I could make up.
 The situation of the British North America and West Indies Squadron, based in Bermuda,

would've been much as described during the 18 th and even 17 th centuries, with one important difference:

Haiti didn't gain its independence till 1804. From that point through the 1880s (from which I've drawn

several plot incidents) much of the squadron's work involved interceding in Haiti on behalf of British

citizens (many of whom brought no credit upon their status) and refugees in general. One could scarcely

ask for a better description of the term 'thankless task'. This one came with cockroaches.