"Was this truly Earth?" (p. 169)
Eric Tamarin arrives. In his hotel room, a TV program banal to a native is exotic to him. He is in Rio de Janeiro Integrate. We have already seen Jim Ching and Adzel in San Francisco Integrate and van Rijn with assorted guests in Chicago Integrate.
Eric sees:
skyscrapers
the bay
cars on streets and elways
a megalopolis unlike anything on Hermes
Rio de Janeiro exists in our time although it has not yet become an Integrate megalopolis but we appreciate reading about it here. Future history is partly continuous with past and present history. We welcome continuities among the discontinuities. One discontinuity is that Eric must take a taxi from the parking roof but aircars have become familiar to us in this kind of sf.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I don't recall, but was Rio de Janeiro the capital of the Commonwealth?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I don't think we're told. The Hermetian ambassador lives in Petropolis.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Still, I wonder. Ambassadors generally live in the capitals of the nations they were accredited to.
Ad astra! Sean
Precisely.
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