This book is one in a series set in Edinburgh, Scotland in the 2020's after the world economy has collapsed into scattered city-states due to wars and drugs. Edinburgh is tightly run by the Guardians with the support of auxiliaries, who are referred to by their numbers rather than their names. Th...
Most of the flavor of the first 50 pp. consists of showing how by 2026 the Edinburgh ultra-rationalist oligarchy has become completely totalitarian, Edinburgh itself decrepit, its economy shot (barring fawning to the sacred tourism-cow), its people fearful and everyone ignorant of the outside. [T...