This is a giant of a book, in many senses of the word. It had to be to give elbow-room for its subject matter - the portrayal of an entire world. There are seven billion-plus of our species, crowding the surface of twenty-first century Earth in an age of acceleratubes, Moonbase Zero, intelligent Computers, mass marketed psychedelics, politics by assassination, scientists who burn incense to appease volcanoes - hive-living hysteria that is reaching its bursting point all over the world. But a hive seldom knows its own madness until its too late.

Employing a dazzling range of literary techniques, John Brunner has created a future world as real as this morning's newspaper - moving, sensory, impressionistic, as jagged as the times it portrays, this book is a real mind-stretcher - and yet beautifully orchestrated to give a vivid picture of the whole.