For those who might have interest in more....modern...renditions and such of this universe, I recommend Gregory Benford's Foundation's Fear.
(Don't bother with the other two in the set. I love both Bear and Brin, but these are not their best....and, arguably, the approaches taken were largely to blame.)
Also, a novella by Donald Kingsbury called Historical Crisis - which he expanded into a novel called Psychohistorical Crisis. Both excellent.
PS: here is a great passage about neat stuff from Kingsbury's site:
Since 1999 I have been researching ancient measures, and have found startling validation of most of the work done by that amazing metrologist, Livio Catullo Stecchini (whose work I found at http://www.interpres.cz and in Peter Tompkins book Secrets of the Great Pyramid). I was trained as a mathematician, and patterns emerged from Stecchini's material that Stecchini himself was unaware of, indicating exactly how the ancient metrologists calibrated their measures -- which completely dispels old myths about where the old measures came from. You can bet your ass that they didn't use no king's foot or elbow length!
Consider it high comedy....sincere tragedy....whatever...don't take it personally.
The Culture
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