Notes

Preface

Millennia from now, will urban legends describe the horrific disaster that destroyed the string of American metropolises along the Pacific coast, from Chief Seattle's Town to the City of Angels? What epic tales might try to picture the explosion of the super-volcano in the Rocky Mountains and the gigantic crater lake of bubbling acid that eons ago swallowed places called Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming? Will there be future fairy tales about birds whose feathers glow in the dark nesting in the ruins of primitive power plants of past ages? Will there be fables about musical sand dunes on Mars? What fantastic fantasies will lure risk-seeking treasure hunters to breach the massive walls of iron thorns surrounding mysterious radioactive caverns buried deep in the deserts?