GBurch1@aol.com said:
> I share your opinion of that element of the books -- in fact, it was
> such an appalling aspect of the material I couldn't finish them.
Actually, the science is plausible, and the politics is quite well done. (My favorite definition of politics is from the developers of Loglan. All vocabulary is made up of multi-place predicates that attempt to be explicit about all the actors, objects, etc. The term for politics translates as "X struggles with Y for control over Z.")
Robinson did a good job of protraying the struggle for control, the splitting up of factions, the focussing on personalities among some, and the devolution to violence as the disagreements became intractable. The econ was abysmal. Strange combination.
Chris
--- Chris Hibbert hibbert@agorics.com http://www.agorics.com 650 941 8224