The Big Brain denies John Tabor's request to marry, and in the twenty-second century it is the Brain that makes the decisions. Should he try an artificial woman to his own specifications, "for spacemen only"? or is an escape to the Ruins a more desirable alternative? There it is possible to live a primitive kill-or-be-killed life, with modern versions of barbaric traditions. Thus begins this major science fiction novel in the tradition of Huxley and Orwell. It is so chillingly, terrifyingly real that reading is compulsive and entertaining and yet at the same time one has the feeling that all this could be around the corner.