As the title suggests, this is a book concerns a person waking from cryogenic sleep far into the future. Okay this is a familiar SF concept and one that you may think has been explored unto the point where nothing more can be said. However, the sleeper is just a small part of this tale. It is the introductory device that allows the author to show us his version of the future of mankind.

Flora Fielding is a former movie actress, a very wealthy woman, who decides to enter cryogenic sleep upon discovering she has uncurable cancer, so she can be awakened in the future when her disease is curable. When she awakes she finds she is in a completely different world. There is a strictly controlled population, only one million people and people interact by means of an implant which allows the projection of images so that interaction in the physical sense is rare.

This is a world where men continuously try to prove themselves worthy of being selected to reproduce through skill, achievement and trials of great daring. And where everyone is linked to a world spanning computer system called Artif who helps control even bodily functions.

Bob Rich's personal views concerning the enviroment are very evident throughout this work although by no means to the detriment of the book. This is a highly polished, well constructed work that gives the reader a glimpse into Bob Rich version of mankind's destiny. It is not a story high in action content, this is far more SF in the vein of Asimov where the ideas are all important than of Heinlein's militaristic aggressive style but with Asimov my favourite SF author I certainly wasn't complaining.