ANNOTATION, FOR THOSE OBSESSIVE ABOUT NARRATIVE CONTINUITY
Alert readers will note that these stories feature several elements that ultimately made it into the Andrea Cort novels and other entries in the future history known as “The AIsource Infection”: among them alien races that include the Bursteeni, the Riirgaans and K’cenhowten; the evil Bettelhine Munitions Corporation; the far-future versions of the internet known as “hytex”; gossip about Vossoff and Nimmitz themselves; and the beautiful, brilliant and glamorous Dejah Shapiro. These readers will also note that the depictions herein sometimes wildly diverge from those to be found in the more seriously-intended stories. The advice of the author: do not try to catalogue these inconsistencies. Do not attempt to explain them. Do not email the author with obsessive questions. He is aware of all of it. To the extent this series takes place in the same universe as the other, it can be reconciled only in the same way that both Humphrey Bogart and the Marx Brothers both had adventures in wartime Casablanca. The Vossoff and Nimmitz stories don’t even bother to be internally consistent with themselves; why, then, would they do the same favor for anybody else? Answer: they wouldn’t. These are the threads you don’t wish to start pulling. I mean it. --ATC