It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
THIS WAS A GOLDEN ACE, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard dying . . . but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice... but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks . . . but nobody loved it.
...one of the most exciting ages ever known, yet minds still yearned for other times, as always. The solar system seethed with activity . . . fighting, feeding, and breeding, learning the new technologies that spewed forth almost before the old had been mastered, girding itself for the first exploration of the far stars in deep space; but- "Where are the new frontiers?" the Romantics cried...
from The Stars my Destination, Alfred Bester.