David Edelman - Infoquake

The rewards of running a successful fiefcorp were considerable. Profits from the greatest fiefcorps were extensive, and often allowed wily fiefcorp masters to leap into the more lucrative realm of real estate. But even in failure, the fiefcorp structure proved beneficial, because the labor market was constantly running a deficit of fresh talent. It was not unusual for people to found two or three failed companies before finding a winning formula.

The biggest problem of a laissez-faire structure such as the fiefcorp system was its rampant lawlessness. Zest for profit often trumped rules of government, creed, and community. It was originally hoped that the low penalties for failure in a fiefcorp would discourage rule breaking, but this proved not to be true.

In an attempt to rein in the lawlessness of the fiefcorp sector, many in the industry turned to the Meme Cooperative. The Cooperative, founded a hundred years earlier by big business as a buffer to Par Padron's populist reforms, had since become mostly a lobbying organization to the Prime Committee and the L-PRACGs. Fiefcorps voluntarily ceded strict authority to the Cooperative to regulate their industry and act as a watchdog organization. Few believe that the Meme Cooperative has been successful in its mission, however.

Another third-party organization, Primo's, arose to provide an overseeing capacity to the fiefcorps. Founded by the fervent libertarian Lucco Primo in 291, the company's objective rating system has acted as a huge deterrent to fraudulent programming practices.

Still, many consider the problem of fiefcorp ethics a problem to this day. As a result, grumbling consumers typically turn to the LPRACGs and the drudges for redress.

The author would like to thank the following individuals for their contributions to this book: Lou Anders, Cindy Blank-Edelman, Bruce Bortz, Jerome Edelman, J.D. Landis, Philip Mansour, and Anne Smith.

Most of all, the author would like to thank Victoria Blakeway Edelman, who made him take out Ferris.

DAVID LOUISEDELMAN was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1971 and grew up in Orange County, California. He received a B.A. in creative writing and journalism from the Writing Seminars program at The Johns Hopkins University in 1993.

He has worked as a web programmer for the U.S. Army and the FBI, a computer trainer to the U.S. Congress and the World Bank, and a marketing director for biometric and e-commerce companies.

Edelman is also a freelance editor and journalist with publishing credits from the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Publishers Weekly, Chicago Sun-Times, Baltimore Evening Sun, Baltimore City Paper, and Virginian-Pilot, among others. Infoquake is his first novel.

Edelman lives with his wife, Victoria, in Reston, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC, where he runs a web programming business and is currently at work on the second and third books in the Jump 225 trilogy.

Visit the author's website at http://www.davidlouisedelman.com/.