Terra is a country of nonconformist individuals in which a futuristic version of the Internet mediates the everyday practice of a grass roots form of participatory democracy, and each citizen is afforded the opportunity to achieve his or her full potential as a human being. In this enlightened society Homo sapiens stands poised to undertake the next step on the evolutionary ladder, and become Homo novus.
By contrast, in FWF an upper class of oligarchs has mentally enslaved the entire population by taking advantage of the same technologies that in Terra are used to liberate the human mind and stimulate the human spirit.
Outraged by some of the manifestations of the subliminally induced mental and spiritual lethargy of the FWF masses, the protagonist, Dr. Philip Deron, embarks on a prolonged and risky struggle to change the social conditions and mentality prevalent in FWF. Ultimately, his confrontation with the FWF establishment endangers his life as well as that of two courageous and exceptional Terran women with whom he had developed a most unusual kind of relationship. With their devoted help he survives assassination attempts, torture, and an arsenal of underhanded plots meant to discredit him and his quest.
This is a story of personal valor amidst social chaos and the disintegration of a corrupt political order. On a more fundamental level, this novel examines social unrest and human evolution in two futuristic cultures whose technologies and social institutions represent extrapolations of those in the contemporary world.
