Glory Season

That is not to say the pastoral image doesn't offer hope. By extolling nature and a lifestyle closer to the Earth, some writers may be helping to create the very sort of wisdom they imagine to have existed in the past. Someday, truly idyllic pastoral cultures may be deliberately designed with the goal of providing placid and just happiness for all, while retaining enough technology to keep existence decent.

But to get there the path lies forward, not by diving into a dark, dank, miserable past. There is but one path to the gracious, ecologically sound, serene pastoralism sought by so many. That route passes, ironically, through successful consummation of this, our first and last chance, our scientific age.

Comments and criticism by many individuals helped elimnate even worse blunders than the purchaser finds in this published version. Among my insightful helpers: Bettya

Thanks also go out to members of Caltech Spectre, who surveyed an uncompleted draft and mailed many comments while my wife and I lived in France. Participating members included Marti DeMore, Kay Van Lepp, A

For technical advice on biology, as well as general criticism, I am grateful to Karen Anderson; Jack Cohen, D.Sc.; Professor William H. Calvin; Janice Willard, D.V.M.; Mickey Zucker, M.D.; and professors Jim Moore, Carole Sussman, and Gregory Benford.

Deserving special thanks, as always, are Ralph Vicinanza and Lou Aronica, as well as Je

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DAVID BRIN is the author of ten novels — Sundiver, Startide Rising, The Practice Effect, The Postman, Heart of the Comet (with Gregory Benford), The Uplift War, Earth, Glory Season, Otherness and Brightness Reef — as well as a short-story collection, The River of Time. He has a doctorate in astrophysics and has been a NASA consultant and a physics professor. He lives in southern California, where he is at work on his next novel, Infinity's Shore, the sequel to Brightness Reef.