Citadel
Citadel
He was looking for a privacy his strange personality needed. And never quite seemed to achieve it. All his efforts were, somehow great triumphs of the race, and great failures for him!
Book Excerpt
ing with considerable comfort in the carefully designed chair which could be snapped into almost any shape, Marlowe bulking behind his desk, Mead sitting somewhat nervously beside him.
"Now, as I understand it, ud Klavan," Marlowe began, "you'd like to learn something of our policies and methods."
"That is correct, Marlowe and Mead." The Dovenilid extracted a block of opaque material from the flat wallet at his side and steadied it on his knee. "I have your permission to take notes?"
"Please do. Now, as it happens, Mr. Mead and I are currently considering a case which perfectly illustrates our policies."
Ud Klavan immediately traced a series of ideographs on the note block, and Marlowe wondered if he was actually going to take their conversation down verbatim. He shrugged mentally. He'd have to ask him, at some later date, whether he'd missed anything. Undoubtedly, there'd be a spare recording of the tape he himself was making.
"To begin: As you know, our government is found
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Pretty much a story for Algis Budrys fans only. Not badly written, it posits interstellar colonization as a real estate selling process, complete with underbidding and scams, with the interstellar government manipulating everything while claiming to be helpless before the free market. Somewhat cynical.
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An odd story of government manipulations in a future populated by a peculiarly libertarian society.
09/20/2008