On her 75th birthday in July of 3015, Elve receives a letter from the Glorious New World Republic of Asia and the Americas. The government demands, but nicely, that she begin to plan for her Glorious Death which will be solemnized upon her eightieth birthday. Elve decides that she will not do it. Instead, she will devote her remaining years to disseminating her precious books, books which have miraculously survived a thousand years of cultural...