As much of the best "speculative fiction" has always done, Nightshade extrapolates from present trends and developments in society and projects these into the future, imagining what human beings and their institutions may become. Most of the novel's action takes place on Mars, which has been colonized and partially "terraformed," or made earthlike and habitable, around the turn of the twenty-second century. Naturally, much of the book's superficial interest derives from technological advances that have made space flight and human colonies on another planet possible, as well as a myriad of impressive gadgets. These are standard trappings of science fiction. But the author's real interest lies elsewhere, namely in the ways technological evolution has (in the imagined world of the novel) affected politics and government, education, communication, and mass entertainment, and in the ways these changes have affected human beings and their interactions with one another...