You’d invent a thrill sport…
"An Innovative and exciting read. A treat."
– C.J. Cherryh
"Buck...
Strength of Stones
by Greg Bear[ Science Fiction ]
In a theocratic world far into the future, cities control their own movements and organization. Constantly moving, growing and decaying, taking care of every need their inhabitants might think of, the cities have decided that humans are no longer a necessary part of their architecture, casting them out to wander in the wilderness and eke out a meager subsistence. To the exiled humans, the cities represent a paradisiacal Eden, a reminder of all they cannot attain due to their sinful and unworthy natures. But things are beginning to change. People are no longer willing to allow the cities to keep them out, choosing instead to force an entry and plunder at will. The cities are starting to crumble and die because they have no purpose or reason to continue living without citizens. One woman, called mad by some and wise by others, is the only human allowed to inhabit a city. From her lonely and precarious position at the heart of one of the greatest cities ever, she must decide the fate of the relationship between human society and the ancient strongholds of knowledge, while making one last desperate attempt to save the living cities.
The final decade of Earth's twentieth century was cataclysmic. Moslem states fought horrible wars in 1995, 1996, and 1998, devastating much of Africa and the Middle East. In less than five years, the steady growth of Islam during the latter half of the century became a rout of terror and apostasy, one of the worst religious convulsions in human history.
Christian splinter cults around the world engaged in every imaginable form of social disobedience to hasten the long-overdue Millennium, but there was no Second Coming. Their indiscretions rubbed off on all Christians.
As for the Jews -- the world had never needed any reason to hate Jews.
The far-flung children of Abraham had their decade of unbridled fervor, and they paid for it. Marginally united by a world turning to other religions and against them, Jews Christians and Moslems ratified the Pact of God in 2020. They desperately harked back to ages past to find common ground. Having spoiled their holy lands, there was no place where they could unite geographically.
In the last years of the twenty-first century, they looked outward. The Heaven Migration began in 2113. After decades more of persecution and ridicule, they pooled their resources to buy a world of their own. That world was renamed God-Does-Battle, tamed by the wealth of the heirs of Christ, Rome, Abraham and OPEC.
They hired the greatest human architect to build their new cities for them. He tried to mediate between what they demanded, and what would work best for them.
He failed.
Copyright (c) 1981, 1988 by Greg Bear
