Publisher's Synopsis
For more than a thousand years, society on Homeworld has remained rigidly stratified. The Great Houses rule, peace between them enforced by unbreakable webs of kinship. The Folk accept the benefits of the system: stability, prosperity and peace. The Indigenes -- their world occupied for thousands of years by settlers from Old Earth -- are placid.
Then, on one night of worldwide rebellion, everything changes, as the Folk turn against the ruling Houses and annihilate them. Joseph -- scion of one Great House, visiting another -- is one of the few survivors at House Getfen. His home is ten thousand miles away. The infrastructure which he has taken for granted all his life -- communications, transport -- has been swept away. For all he knows his family has been wiped out as thoroughly as the members of House Getfen. But his only hope lies in finding his way home, across ten thousand miles of a world turned suddenly strange and hostile. To succeed, he must set aside all his old beliefs and assumptions and learn the truth about the world he lives in.
Robert Silverberg's newest novel is a masterful portrayal of a society and turned upside-down, and a colourful and highly imaginative depiction of an alien world.
