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The Quiet War

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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 and 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 and Saturn, the Outers, descendants of refugees from Earth's repressive regimes, have constructed a wild variety of self-sufficient cities and 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 and 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 and drive human evolution in a hundred new directions. On Earth, many demand pre-emptive action against the Outers before it's too late; others want to exploit the talents of their scientists and gene wizards. Amid campaigns for peace and reconciliation, political machinations, crude displays of military might and espionage by cunningly wrought agents, the two branches of humanity edge towards war...

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Paul McAuley

Paul McAuley

Born in Gloucestershire, Paul McAuley has a Ph.D in Botany and worked as a researcher and lecturer in various universities, including Oxford, St Andrews and the University of California, Los Angeles. His first novel won the Philip K Dick Award; his fifth the Arthur C. Clarke and John. W. Campbell Awards. His novels and stories have also won the British Fantasy, Sidewise and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. Although he lives in London, he spends as much time as possible getting lost in the woods.

You can find his website at: www.unlikelyworlds.co.uk

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