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Author
Index
S |
Bruce
Sterling |
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Title
Index
D |
Distraction |
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| Year |
1998 |
| Publisher |
Millennium
(Orion Publishing) |
| ISBN |
1857988310 |
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Synopsis
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Distraction:
a startling,
darkly comic
vision of the
future.
2044, and the
US is coming apart
at the
seams. The
people live
nomadic lives
fuelled by cheap
transport and even
cheaper
communications.
The new cold war
is with the Dutch
and mostly fought
over the
Net. The
notion of central
government is
almost
meaningless.
This is your
future, Oscar
Valparaiso's too -
or it would be if
he were like the
rest of us instead
of being only half
human.
Political spin
doctor par
excellence,
Oscar has put
himself out of a
job: he'd only be
a liability to his
boss in the White
House due to his
genetic
background.
Instead, he takes
himself off to the
Collaboratory, a
facility that's
part fuelled by
corruption part by
dramatic
scientific
advances.
Whipping his 'krewe'
into shape, Oscar
turns a no-win
situation
around. If
he can only
straighten out his
love life and
solve a worldwide
crisis that only
he has noticed,
America should be
his for the taking
... |
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Review
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'Sterling
is back with a
bang with this
uproarious,
provocative,
thoughtful, often
hilarious,
sometimes inspired
medium-future
deconstruction of
politics, science,
economics, and the
American Dream'
Kirkus |
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_______________________________________________________
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Credit:
NASA
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America
the
Beautiful
This
natural-color
image of
North
America
combines
cloud-free
data from
over 500
Multi-angle
Imaging
SpectroRadiometer
(MISR)
orbits
with
shaded
relief
Digital
Terrain
Elevation
models
from the
Shuttle
Radar
Topography
Mission (SRTM)
and other
sources.
In
addition
to the
contiguous
United
States,
the full
size image
spans from
British
Columbia
in the
northwest
to
Newfoundland
in the
northeast,
and
extends
eastward
to the
lonely
Bermuda
Islands
and
southward
to the
Bahamas,
Cuba and
Mexico.
Draped in
green, the
eastern
and
central
United
States and
Canada
contrast
with the
vibrant
geology
that is
laid bare
across the
arid
portions
of the
southwestern
United
States and
central
Mexico.
Along
Mexico's
east
coast, the
lush
vegetation
to the
east of
the Sierra
Madre
mountain
range
indicates
the
orographic
rainfall
gradient
along this
subtropical-tropical
coast. In
the high
Rocky
Mountains
and in
British
Columbia's
Coast
Range,
many peaks
remain
snow-covered
year-round.
The
Multi-angle
Imaging
SpectroRadiometer
observes
the daylit
Earth
continuously
and every
9 days
views the
entire
globe
between 82°
north and
82°south
latitude.
This data
product
was
generated
from a
portion of
the
imagery
acquired
during
years 2000
- 2004. |
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NASA
Image of
the day
archive |
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