Single Combat

Dean Charles Ing (1931 - 2020) was an American author, who usually wrote in the science fiction and techno-thriller genres. His novel The Ransom of Black Stealth One (1989) was a New York Times bestseller. He was a former member of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy. He wrote more than 30 novels, and co-authored novels with his friends Jerry Pournelle, S. M. Stirling, and Leik Myrabo.

Ing was a United States Air Force veteran (where he served as a USAF interceptor crew chief), a former aerospace engineer, and a university professor who held a doctorate in Communications Theory. He had been a techno-thriller genre writer since 1977. Following the death of science fiction author Mack Reynolds in 1983, Ing was asked to finish several of Reynolds' uncompleted manuscripts.