Acknowledgments

Apparently, this section is the only one I can be sure anyone will read at least that would be the case if this were an academic dissertation. That's one advantage of writing a book instead; everyone's already downloading the final demo and skimming through Part VII! I guess that's not a bad thing; this section no doubt has the weakest content anyway.

This book probably wouldn't have seen the light of day without the persistent help of Andy Coates and the encouragement from Linden Hutchinson. I'm also eternally grateful to my family for their support over the past few months; they've been quite intense (both the family and the months). Special thanks go to my sister Jess for not carrying out her threat to help write this book although it did cost me an extra few lines of acknowledgment.

I'm in debt to AI gurus extraordinaire Neil Kirby, Eric Dybsand, and François Dominic Laramee for their technical reviews of my early drafts. Without their insightful comments and critical analyses, this book wouldn't be what it is today and I mean that in the best possible way. Thanks to Steve Woodcock for writing the Foreword. Acknowledgments also go to Lisa Thibault and Stephanie Wall from New Riders for making this whole experience seem that much easier!

Finally, I want to acknowledge the people involved with the FEAR project for their company and great debates, particularly Max Dennis Lüsebrink and Thomas Webber. I'm also deeply indebted to the gang in the AI department at the University of Edinburgh, especially Tim Lukins, Jay Bradley, and Ignasi Cos Aguilera, for the many ideas and discussion topics that made it into this work.