DAVID BRIN is the author of eleven previous novels, Sundiver, The Uplift War, Startide Rising, The Practice Effect, The Postman (which was adapted for film by Warner Brothers), Heart of the Comet (with Gregory Benford), Earth, Glory Season, Brightness Reef, Infinity’s Shore, and Heaven’s Reach, as well as the short-story collections The River of Time and Otherness. His most recent work of nonfiction is The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Freedom and Privacy? 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.