Intrusive rock
An intrusion is an igneous rock body that forms from crystallized magma under Earth's surface. Magma slowly pushes up from deep within the earth into any cracks or spaces it can find, sometimes pushing existing country rock out of the way, a process that can take millions of years. As the rock slowly cools into a solid, the different parts of the magma crystallize into minerals. Many mountain ranges, such as the Sierra Nevada in California, are formed mostly by intrusive rock, large granite (or related rock) formations.
Intrusions are one of the two ways igneous rock can form; the other is extrusive, that is, a volcanic eruption or similar event. Technically speaking, an intrusion is any formation of intrusive igneous rock; rock formed from magma that cools and solidifies within the crust of the planet. In contrast, an extrusion consists of extrusive rock; rock formed above the surface of the crust.
Intrusions vary widely, from mountain-range-sized batholiths to thin veinlike fracture fillings of aplite or pegmatite. When exposed by erosion, these cores called batholiths may occupy huge areas of Earth's surface. Large bodies of magma that solidify underground before they reach the surface of the crust are called plutons.
Intrusion (novel)
Intrusion is a 2012 science fiction novel by Ken MacLeod.
Plot summary
The protagonists are Hugh and Hope Morrison, a couple with a young son in a near-future, post-climate change London during the "Warm War". The United Kingdom is governed by the Labour Party in a technocratic government that pursues a policy of a "free and social market" by, in the words of one of its MPs, intervening to allow people to make the choices they would have made if only they had had all the information. In practice, this amounts to an attempt to create a conformist dystopia, "strongly encouraging" its citizens to make "the right choice". This brings the pregnant Hope into conflict with the state when she decides that she does not want to take "the Fix", a single-dose pill that would correct genetic errors in her unborn child. This draws her, Hugh and the state into a moral dilemma as she struggles against the pressure to conform.
Reception
Cory Doctorow reviewed Intrusion as "a new kind of dystopian novel: a vision of a near future "benevolent dictatorship" run by Tony Blair-style technocrats who believe freedom isn't the right to choose, it's the right to have the government decide what you would choose, if only you knew what they knew."
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