When it was first introduced, the LINK was hailed as the greatest advance in history for the communication and entertainment industries. Nano robots - nanobots - painlessly injected into the thin layer between the scalp and the skull, form a cranial network that links the brain's metacortex to the Internet. No hardware is needed; the computer, the phone, movies and hundreds of thousands of apps are available on demand inside your head The increased threat of terrorism leads the government to pass the Mandatory Link Law. They take over the net and use it to monitor every citizen. NIK SMITH is one of a group of intellectuals that refuse the link and he manages to elude the police for years. But he makes a wrong turn and gets caught in a police round up hunting for Ediots; the unlinked. When he regains consciousness, in a jail cell, he discovers he's lost something; his memories. The Authorities want to know how Nik avoided being linked. Is he a member of the anti-link terrorist organization, C.I.A.L.? Nik wants to know the same things. As his memories begin to return and Nik relives his past, he uses these events as clues to discover who he was, who he is and who he might become in this brave new world. And he thinks he has it all figured out, until he meets the aliens.

Bali and Balinese culture have become central to western imaginings of 'the east.' Along with its natural beauty and tropical sensuality, Bali's rich and complex culture has proved intensely alluring for western artists, scholars, and travelers. However, as this aesthetic imagining and desire for beauty have evolved into a mass tourism industry, the island people and their culture have experienced radical and rapid transformation. While many in the international community were stunned by the horror of the militant bombings in 2002 and 2005, these attacks were merely the apex of a profound and ongoing crisis which resonates through the period of Bali's modernization and engagement with the global economy of pleasure. Bali's Silent Crisis examines and elucidates the complex cultural and political environment of contemporary Bali. The book explains the conditions of crisis in Bali in terms of a powerful collision of cultural elements and trends, focusing specifically on the double matrix of 'desire' and 'violence' that has characterized Bali's recent past. Moving beyond a simple opposition between 'tradition' and 'the modern', this book reveals a society that is struggling to reconcile its own profound aesthetic and sense of historical identity with the intense agonisms that are generated through rapid social and cultural change. Through its thematic approach, Bali's Silent Crisis presents an image of community trauma, creative resilience and pluralization. The book records the challenges and horrors associated with transition, as well as the formidable beauty that remains intrinsic to the island's sense of cultural destiny.