Thirty years before, the Rethril system had been one of the most prosperous in the Empire. A teeming cityworld, it was a jewel in Redmane’s crown. Then came the plagues.
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The Board Member involved with Rittensoor was Franco Lubomirski, now deceased. Lawrenceson discovered that the archive had just received his records.
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Bruce Lawrenceson, indentured on an archive world, had long since given up hope of catching a Board Member’s eye. At first he was determined to do so, determined to become a Board Member himself. This thought still obsessed him—what would it be like? To control a planet, to have limitless wealth, to have absolute dominion over vast numbers of people? He thought he knew, and he craved it so badly, enough that it woke constantly him at night. Even though he knew it was hopeless.
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God’s Playground is Norman Davies’ ambitious history of Poland.
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Like most of the modern corporations, Redmane Minerals was ruled­ absolutely by its Board. The Board had thirteen members, and made decisions by majority vote. They could vote to do anything they pleased. There was theoretical shareholder oversight, but this had waned over the centuries and was meaningless.
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Penelope Lively’s The Photograph Starts off very promisingly, drawing the reader into a tale of a man who finds a compromising photo of his dead wife while looking for old research materials.
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She had her gun close to her chest as she wheeled and kicked the door, which shattered into plastic fragments.
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Was I alive? Or was this some postmortal dream, the last firings of my neurons?
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I didn’t know it was an ouster at first. Guns and non-Security uniforms were enough to convince me to run.
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The chandelier was a colossus, nearly thirty meters across, fusing glass, silver wrapped around steel, and diamond. The light sources inside it pulsed gently, timed to create a subtle rippling effect that was mostly lost on the revelers beneath it.
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