Kaleidoscope Century is a science fiction novel by John Barnes. First published in 1995, it is part of the author's Century Next Door series. Plot summary The narrator Joshua—at first appearing to be just over 60 years old, wakes up May 27, 2109 in an apartment on human-settled Mars. With no memory of his past, he goes to his werp, a voice-activated laptop computer, and learns that his name is Joshua Ali Quare and that he was born in 1968. From this frame story and a box containing several objects from his past, Quare pieces together what he believes is true about his life leading to the early 22nd century. It is soon clear that he is unburdened by any form of morality. Joshua ran away from home early in his teens to escape his abusive father, and stayed in an upstairs apartment at Gwenny's Diner. Joshua's mother, a Communist party member, surreptitiously helped him. He entered the US Army at the behest of some Party organizers, and he was put in contact with a KGB operative who provided him with an injection to keep him from receiving or transmitting AIDS (which mutates and spreads soon after, wiping out a large percentage of the population of Earth). The injection also enhanced his memory, and periodically regenerates his body, so that he becomes 10 years younger with each 15-year life period. This makes him a longtimer, and gives him the side-effect of having his memory wiped after every life period. Joshua's US Army career is spent in Operation Desert Storm (the First Oil War in the novel) and the "Second Oil War" which culminated in a march on Tehran. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the KGB diversified and became "the Organization," a counter-insurgency group that supplied technical and logistic support to every side in the Eurowar, a NATO-Central European Union-Russian conflict in the early 21st century. Among the innovations of the Eurowar were Simulation Modeling Optimizing Targeters (SMOTs) a jump from smart weapons to "brilliant weapons" that attacked an enemy country's natural resources and means of production. These weapons cause massive environmental damage to the earth, and are the predecessors of the memes. Joshua, as an agent for The Organization, begins his violent operative career with a gang rape involving US soldiers, and then sets out a series of terrorist-like missions to intensify the war. During the Eurowar, Joshua