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Islands in the Net
Encyclopedia
Islands in the Net, a 1988 science fiction
novel by Bruce Sterling
. It won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
in 1989, and was nominated for both the Hugo
and Locus
Awards that same year.
s. The protagonist, swept up in events beyond her control, finds herself in the places off the net, from a datahaven in Grenada
, to a Singapore
under terrorist
attack, to the poorest and most disaster-struck part of Africa
.
In the story, the fiction
al book The Lawrence Doctrine and Postindustrial Insurgency, named after Lawrence of Arabia, is banned because it deals directly with methods and tactics of an insurgent
rebellion
.
; Atlanta, Georgia
; Grenada
; an island in the north east coast of South America
; Singapore
and Africa
. Protagonist Laura Webster, a mother of three-month-old Loretta, works as a public relations
employee for global corporation of economic democrats Rizome. Together with her husband David they run the Lodge, a resort for Rizome workers on the island of Galveston.
The action sets off when Rizome organizes a conference between itself and three data havens - EFT Commerzbank of Luxembourg
, The Young Soo Chim Islamic Bank and Grenada United Bank - in the Lodge. After first day of conference the representative of Grenada
, Winston Stubbs, is assassinated. The organization which admits to killing him calls itself "F.A.C.T." (Free Army of Counter-Terrorism). Rizome decides to send Laura with her husband and baby to Grenada on a diplomatic mission to prove that Rizome had nothing to do with the murder.
While in Grenada, Laura and David learn about its tragic history and advanced technology flourishing on the island thanks to “mad-doctors” like the American Brian Prentis. Grenada is ruled by one party, the New Millennium Movement, with Prime Minister Eric Louison who uses voodoo tradition as means of keeping order in the country. Food is plentiful and cheaply produced on one of the huge tankers adapted for factories and housing. Drugs, in the form of a pure synthetic THC
, are also cheap and widely accessible. Laura and David manage to escape Grenada after Singapore attacks it. They return to Atlanta and separate. David takes the baby to one of Rizome’s Retreats and Laura sets off to Singapore to continue her mission to improve the world.
In Singapore
, Laura witnesses the launching of the first Singaporean space rocket, celebrated by a speech from Singapore’s prime minister and leader of People’s Innovation Party, Kim Sue Lok. The celebration ends in chaos as the prime minister spits fire and explodes, as it turns out he was a victim of Grenada’s pseudo-voodoo tricks. This event triggers national panic and riots. Grenada invades Singapore in reaction to Singapore’s previous attack. In addition, Singapore’s opposition party, the Anti-Labour Party with Razak as a leader, tries to use the situation to get into power. The last group to invade Singapore is the Red Cross.
Laura is cut off from the Net and cannot contact her husband or Rizome’s headquarters. Together with other Rizome’s workers in Singapore she decides to get herself arrested and wait in prison for the end of war. Unfortunately, Laura gets separated from her companions and ends up on the roof of The Young Soo Chim Islamic Bank. From there a chopper
takes her, together with other survivors from the riots, to a cargo ship somewhere in the middle of a sea. The ship is bombed by F.A.C.T. and Laura is taken to one of F.A.C.T.’s submarines. There she learns more about the organization. Laura is then taken by a plane and transported to one of the prisons in Bamako, the capital of Mali. F.A.C.T. took over this country's government in order to have a base for the organization. After a conversation with the Inspector of Prisons she finds out that she poses a threat to the organization because they think she knows they have an atomic bomb which they keep on board of Thermopylae, the submarine she has been kept on.
She spends two years in the prison. When a South African country supported by European authority of the Vienna convention attacks Mali, she is taken in a convoy to the atomic site to be shot on camera as a hostage. She is miraculously freed when the convoy is attacked by a group of Inadin Cultural Revolutionists. Their leader is Jonathan Gresham, an American journalist and radical, who helps Inadin people, also called Tuaregs the nomadic tribes of Sahara
, fight against any forms of outside interference in their traditional way of life.
Gresham takes Laura to an Azanian relief camp in order to save the life of her convoy companion, Azanian doctor Katje Selous, wounded in the action. Outside of the relief camp Gresham records Laura’s statement on all that happened to her and sends in on the Net. Laura and Gresham get romantically involved but this feeling has no future as she has to go back to the States and Gresham will continue to help Inadins.
Next when we meet Laura she arrives at Galveston and takes part in an official Rizome party organized for her. Her husband David lost hope that she was alive and got involved with Laura’s closest friend, Emily Donato. Loretta, Laura and David’s daughter, is raised by Laura’s mother Margaret. Laura continues to work for Rizome and tries to improve the world by doing so. The last scene in the novel describes Hiroshima being bombed by F.A.C.T. Fortunately, this time the bomb did not explode.
who during First World War helped the Arabs fight Ottoman Turks
. Instead of fighting the Ottoman Turks, Lawrence convinced Arabs to block their expansion by destroying their communication lines, which at the time were railway tracks and telegraphs. Although Arabs were successful in fighting Turks they became dependent on the British Empire to provide them with industrial products such as explosives and canned food. Gresham calls the First World War “a proto-Net civil war”. The Arabs defeated their Ottoman overlords by destroying their communication network, namely the railway and telegraph lines. In Sterling's 21st Century, for the Tuaregs the enemy is the Net. However, the Arabs were colonized by the British with industrial products and manufactures such as guns, cotton, dynamite and canned food. For Sterling's Tauregs the necessary products of the Networld are solar power, plastique, and single-cell protein.
Gresham’s book shows a pessimistic view of globalization
and its mechanisms. It takes the view that it is impossible for small and economically weaker nations to stay completely independent; global influence will always be present with its positive and negative aspects.
as a means of keeping the world order, is weak and divided, and to avoid world panic protects the terrorists from F.A.C.T. Countries that grow in power are Grenada, Singapore and Luxemburg, the so-called data havens where data piracy is legitimate. Organizations that feel threatened by the growing influence of havens are Rizome Industries Group, an economic democracy
global corporation which suffers losses because of the data piracy and wants to negotiate with the pirates, and the Free Army of Counter-Terrorism (F.A.C.T.) which calls itself “the real world police” and plans to deal with any signs of attacks on “doctrines of national sovereignty”. This is the main reason why F.A.C.T. assassinates Winston Stubbs and bombs the ship on which Laura was sailing with Singaporean pirates.
The novel shows a new phenomenon emerging in the political world. The global organizations start realizing that they no longer need governments to successfully run their affairs; “Let us cut out the middleman,” says one of Kymera Corporation workers. The F.A.C.T. seems to be fighting signs of such thinking, while at the same time it is a global corporation which chose one of African countries, Mali
, and took over its government in order to have its own military base.
Africa is still “a mess”. The only problem which has been solved is famine, thanks to "the scop", a single-cell protein. The countries still suffer from poverty and political instability. People die from retrovirus
and have no perspectives and developed countries are not interested in what is going on there.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel by Bruce Sterling
Bruce Sterling
Michael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.-Writings:...
. It won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel
The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for best science fiction novel was created in 1973 by writers and critics Harry Harrison and Brian W. Aldiss to honor Campbell's name...
in 1989, and was nominated for both the Hugo
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
and Locus
Locus Award
The Locus Award is a literary award established in 1971 and presented to winners of Locus magazine's annual readers' poll. Currently, the Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet...
Awards that same year.
Overview
It offers a view of an early 21st century world apparently peaceful with delocalised, networking corporationCorporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
s. The protagonist, swept up in events beyond her control, finds herself in the places off the net, from a datahaven in Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...
, to a Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
under terrorist
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
attack, to the poorest and most disaster-struck part of Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
.
In the story, the fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
al book The Lawrence Doctrine and Postindustrial Insurgency, named after Lawrence of Arabia, is banned because it deals directly with methods and tactics of an insurgent
Insurgency
An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...
rebellion
Rebellion
Rebellion, uprising or insurrection, is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviors aimed at destroying or replacing an established authority such as a government or a head of state...
.
Plot summary
The action takes place in 2023–2025 on Galveston, TexasTexas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
; Atlanta, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
; Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...
; an island in the north east coast of South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
; Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
and Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. Protagonist Laura Webster, a mother of three-month-old Loretta, works as a public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
employee for global corporation of economic democrats Rizome. Together with her husband David they run the Lodge, a resort for Rizome workers on the island of Galveston.
The action sets off when Rizome organizes a conference between itself and three data havens - EFT Commerzbank of Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
, The Young Soo Chim Islamic Bank and Grenada United Bank - in the Lodge. After first day of conference the representative of Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...
, Winston Stubbs, is assassinated. The organization which admits to killing him calls itself "F.A.C.T." (Free Army of Counter-Terrorism). Rizome decides to send Laura with her husband and baby to Grenada on a diplomatic mission to prove that Rizome had nothing to do with the murder.
While in Grenada, Laura and David learn about its tragic history and advanced technology flourishing on the island thanks to “mad-doctors” like the American Brian Prentis. Grenada is ruled by one party, the New Millennium Movement, with Prime Minister Eric Louison who uses voodoo tradition as means of keeping order in the country. Food is plentiful and cheaply produced on one of the huge tankers adapted for factories and housing. Drugs, in the form of a pure synthetic THC
THC
THC commonly refers to tetrahydrocannabinol, the main active chemical compound in Cannabis.THC may also refer to:* Tan Holdings Corporation...
, are also cheap and widely accessible. Laura and David manage to escape Grenada after Singapore attacks it. They return to Atlanta and separate. David takes the baby to one of Rizome’s Retreats and Laura sets off to Singapore to continue her mission to improve the world.
In Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, Laura witnesses the launching of the first Singaporean space rocket, celebrated by a speech from Singapore’s prime minister and leader of People’s Innovation Party, Kim Sue Lok. The celebration ends in chaos as the prime minister spits fire and explodes, as it turns out he was a victim of Grenada’s pseudo-voodoo tricks. This event triggers national panic and riots. Grenada invades Singapore in reaction to Singapore’s previous attack. In addition, Singapore’s opposition party, the Anti-Labour Party with Razak as a leader, tries to use the situation to get into power. The last group to invade Singapore is the Red Cross.
Laura is cut off from the Net and cannot contact her husband or Rizome’s headquarters. Together with other Rizome’s workers in Singapore she decides to get herself arrested and wait in prison for the end of war. Unfortunately, Laura gets separated from her companions and ends up on the roof of The Young Soo Chim Islamic Bank. From there a chopper
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
takes her, together with other survivors from the riots, to a cargo ship somewhere in the middle of a sea. The ship is bombed by F.A.C.T. and Laura is taken to one of F.A.C.T.’s submarines. There she learns more about the organization. Laura is then taken by a plane and transported to one of the prisons in Bamako, the capital of Mali. F.A.C.T. took over this country's government in order to have a base for the organization. After a conversation with the Inspector of Prisons she finds out that she poses a threat to the organization because they think she knows they have an atomic bomb which they keep on board of Thermopylae, the submarine she has been kept on.
She spends two years in the prison. When a South African country supported by European authority of the Vienna convention attacks Mali, she is taken in a convoy to the atomic site to be shot on camera as a hostage. She is miraculously freed when the convoy is attacked by a group of Inadin Cultural Revolutionists. Their leader is Jonathan Gresham, an American journalist and radical, who helps Inadin people, also called Tuaregs the nomadic tribes of Sahara
Sahara
The Sahara is the world's second largest desert, after Antarctica. At over , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as Europe or the United States. The Sahara stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean...
, fight against any forms of outside interference in their traditional way of life.
Gresham takes Laura to an Azanian relief camp in order to save the life of her convoy companion, Azanian doctor Katje Selous, wounded in the action. Outside of the relief camp Gresham records Laura’s statement on all that happened to her and sends in on the Net. Laura and Gresham get romantically involved but this feeling has no future as she has to go back to the States and Gresham will continue to help Inadins.
Next when we meet Laura she arrives at Galveston and takes part in an official Rizome party organized for her. Her husband David lost hope that she was alive and got involved with Laura’s closest friend, Emily Donato. Loretta, Laura and David’s daughter, is raised by Laura’s mother Margaret. Laura continues to work for Rizome and tries to improve the world by doing so. The last scene in the novel describes Hiroshima being bombed by F.A.C.T. Fortunately, this time the bomb did not explode.
Lawrence’s doctrine
In the fictional world of Islands there exists a book titled The Lawrence Doctrine and Postindustrial Insurgency by Colonel Jonathan Gresham. It is banned by Vienna and widely read in the political underground. It draws on the example of T. E. LawrenceT. E. Lawrence
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO , known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British Army officer renowned especially for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18...
who during First World War helped the Arabs fight Ottoman Turks
Ottoman Turks
The Ottoman Turks were the Turkish-speaking population of the Ottoman Empire who formed the base of the state's military and ruling classes. Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks is scarce, but they take their Turkish name, Osmanlı , from the house of Osman I The Ottoman...
. Instead of fighting the Ottoman Turks, Lawrence convinced Arabs to block their expansion by destroying their communication lines, which at the time were railway tracks and telegraphs. Although Arabs were successful in fighting Turks they became dependent on the British Empire to provide them with industrial products such as explosives and canned food. Gresham calls the First World War “a proto-Net civil war”. The Arabs defeated their Ottoman overlords by destroying their communication network, namely the railway and telegraph lines. In Sterling's 21st Century, for the Tuaregs the enemy is the Net. However, the Arabs were colonized by the British with industrial products and manufactures such as guns, cotton, dynamite and canned food. For Sterling's Tauregs the necessary products of the Networld are solar power, plastique, and single-cell protein.
Gresham’s book shows a pessimistic view of globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
and its mechanisms. It takes the view that it is impossible for small and economically weaker nations to stay completely independent; global influence will always be present with its positive and negative aspects.
Political order of the world in Islands
In the world of the novel the USA and the Soviet Union are still the world powers. The international political order, which is guarded by the Vienna Convention and uses censorshipCensorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
as a means of keeping the world order, is weak and divided, and to avoid world panic protects the terrorists from F.A.C.T. Countries that grow in power are Grenada, Singapore and Luxemburg, the so-called data havens where data piracy is legitimate. Organizations that feel threatened by the growing influence of havens are Rizome Industries Group, an economic democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
global corporation which suffers losses because of the data piracy and wants to negotiate with the pirates, and the Free Army of Counter-Terrorism (F.A.C.T.) which calls itself “the real world police” and plans to deal with any signs of attacks on “doctrines of national sovereignty”. This is the main reason why F.A.C.T. assassinates Winston Stubbs and bombs the ship on which Laura was sailing with Singaporean pirates.
The novel shows a new phenomenon emerging in the political world. The global organizations start realizing that they no longer need governments to successfully run their affairs; “Let us cut out the middleman,” says one of Kymera Corporation workers. The F.A.C.T. seems to be fighting signs of such thinking, while at the same time it is a global corporation which chose one of African countries, Mali
Mali
Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...
, and took over its government in order to have its own military base.
Africa is still “a mess”. The only problem which has been solved is famine, thanks to "the scop", a single-cell protein. The countries still suffer from poverty and political instability. People die from retrovirus
Retrovirus
A retrovirus is an RNA virus that is duplicated in a host cell using the reverse transcriptase enzyme to produce DNA from its RNA genome. The DNA is then incorporated into the host's genome by an integrase enzyme. The virus thereafter replicates as part of the host cell's DNA...
and have no perspectives and developed countries are not interested in what is going on there.
Hightech inventions
- The Net: similar to today’s Internet.
- Running shoes: used by Laura with indicators of mileage covered by the runner similar to the latest product of the NikeNike, Inc.Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
and iPod companies. - Trash cans: on Galveston beach, these move towards the person who calls them. After one puts refuse into them, they respond by saying “Thank you!”
- Watchphone: a device used as a watch, a phone and an organizer.
- Videoglasses: sunglasses with a video camera. Used by Laura and David on Grenada in conjunction with custom made earphones. Rather heavy and awkward.
- Scop: a single cell protein that is mass produced cheaply in “protein vats swarming with bacteria.”
- Sticky: Michael Thompson/Nesta Stubbs – a man whose digestive system has been modified to contain special bacteria which, after he eats a carton of yogurt, produces drugs turning him into professional hitman that feels no pain or empathy.
- Suntan lotion: changes the structure of a person's skin and turns its color black. Invented by Brain Prentis; used by David and later mass produced by Rizome.
- Romance: red capsules containing hormones similar to those produced synthetically by the brain of a person in love; produced by gene-spliced bacteria and used by prostitutes from The Church of Ishtar, a religious organization providing sexual services to men.
- Synthetic THC: produced legally in Grenada in the form of small paper plasters stuck to the skin and releasing THC, the active substance in marijuanaCannabis (drug)Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
.
Successful predictions
- The Net as a means of worldwide communication and the omnipresence of computers. B. Sterling: “I think it was a grand success to realize that big, dorky geek computers were going to become incredibly fashionable.”
- The institution of data havens; there has been an attempt to establish a data haven by HavenCoHavenCoHavenCo Limited was a data haven, data hosting services company, founded in 2000 which operated from Sealand, self-declared 'sovereign principality' that occupies a man-made former World War II defensive facility originally known as Roughs Tower located approximately six miles from the coast of...
. The haven was established on the SealandPrincipality of SealandThe Principality of Sealand is an unrecognized entity, located on HM Fort Roughs, a former World War II Maunsell Sea Fort in the North Sea 10 km off the coast of Suffolk, England, United Kingdom ....
in the North SeaNorth SeaIn the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
. “...the Sealand data haven in the North Sea is similar to the data havens described in my 1988 novel Islands in the Net." It's not clear that this has been a successful attempt as Sealand has not successfully established sovereignty. - End of the cold war - though how it ended in the novel is quite different than how it ended in reality.
- Wearable, personal computers (the watchphone).
Failed predictions
- Islands anticipates that the Soviet UnionSoviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
will still be in existence in 2023 - in reality, the USSR was officially dissolvedBelavezha AccordsThe Belavezha Accords is the agreement which declared the Soviet Union effectively dissolved and established the Commonwealth of Independent States in its place...
on December 8, 1991, just three years after the book was published. - In Islands, communication on the Network relies on one-way messaging: pre-recorded video messages and telexTelexTelex may refer to:* Telex , , a communications network** Teleprinter, the device used on the above network* Telex , a Belgian pop group...
. It misses both the interactive nature of the WWW and effects of Moore's LawMoore's LawMoore's law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware: the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years....
on prices. Excerpt, p 16-17: "The Lodge did most of its business as telex, straight print sent by wire ... it was cheapest and simplest... Fax was good for graphics and still photos; the fax machine was essentially a Xerox with a phone ... Rizome favored one-way prerecorded calls because they were more efficient. There was less chance of expensive screwup in a one-way recorded call... Teleconferencing was the expensive borderland where phones blurred into television."
External links
- Islands in the Net at Worlds Without End