"...she found a public information outlet. Setting her informant, she stepped into the booth and paid it with a coin. Not until she had drawn the particulars she wanted did she notice how hard her wrist had pressed the contact." (p. 76)
So: Kyra carries an "informant" on her wrist. However, the informant does not directly access what we now call the internet. Instead, it downloads local information from a "public information outlet." Harvest Of Stars was first published in 1993. I had been working in Merseyside for two to three years and our organization was only just becoming computerized and switching from paper records. Some time after that, a colleague told me that he might be on the internet that evening and was there anything that I would like him to search for? I said "Poul Anderson." The following day, he informed me that Poul Anderson had three whole pages on the internet!
Lancaster update: wet morning; leisurely breakfast; both Poul Anderson and John Grisham to reread; retired life.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
A rare, but understandable bit of "datedness" in the HARVEST books. I don't think anyone could have predicted in 1993 the World Wide Web we have now. Albeit, that was becoming plain by 1997 or 1998 around the time Stirling was pub. THE STONE DOGS and DRAKON.
After a long hiatus caused by reading Pattison's FOSSIL MEN and rereading Goldberg's LIBERAL FASCISM, I'm finally back to reading Anderson, in this case A STONE IN HEAVEN.
Ad astra! Sean
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