Quiet War

Product Description

Twenty-third century Earth ravaged by climate change looks backwards to the holy ideal of a pre-industrial Eden. Political power has been grabbed by a few powerful families & their green saints. Millions of people are imprisoned in teeming cities; millions more labour on Pharaonic projects to rebuild ruined ecosystems. On the moons of Jupiter & Saturn the Outers descendants of refugees from Earths repressive regimes have constructed a wild variety of self-sufficient cities & settlements: scientific utopias crammed with exuberant creations of the genetic arts; the last outposts of every kind of democratic tradition. The fragile detente between the Outer cities & the dynasties of Earth is threatened by the ambitions of the rising generation of Outers who want to break free of their cosy inward-looking pocket paradises colonise the rest of the Solar System & drive human evolution in a hundred new directions. On Earth many demand pre-emptive action against the Outers before its too late; others want to exploit the talents of their scientists & gene wizards. Amid campaigns for peace & reconciliation political machinations crude displays of military might & espionage by cunningly wrought agents the two branches of humanity edge towards war.. .