"Like a glowing jewel, the city lay upon the breast of the desert. Once it had known change and alteration, but now Time passed it by. Night and day fled across the desert's face, but in the streets of Diaspar it was always afternoon, and darkness never came. The long winter nights might dust the desert with frost, as the last moisture left in the thin air of Earth congealed - but the city knew neither heat nor cold. It had no contact with the outer world; it was a universe itself." prologue from 'The City and the Stars' by Arthur C. Clarke (1956)