It was only now, looking out across that endless, geometric whiteness, that he understood how staggeringly vast Tsao Ch’un’s city had become. Operating at the very edge of things – at the breaking crest of the great wave of resettlement – he had been too close to see it. But now that he did, he grasped how different in kind it was, how transformational the idea behind it. Compared to it, all of the cities of the past had been but mud and daub. For this was The City, and he was returning to meet its creator. As his craft banked to the left, Jiang saw before him the massive hexagonal gap in that otherwise unblemished surface. Down there, in the deep gloom, at the bottom of a massive well five li across and two li deep, was what remained of China’s past. The Forbidden City. For 800 years this had been the heart of China, of Chung Kuo, the Middle Kingdom. Tsao Ch’un had made it his capital, once he had wrested power from the Politburo, taking on the mantle of the emperors and naming himself Son of Heaven in the ancient style.
What do You think about Daylight On Iron Mountain?
