After 12,000 Years

Will there be any men on earth 12,000 years from now? If so, what will they be like? Will they be super-geniuses with atom-powered industry, magnificent cities, and happy people enjoying a freedom and abundance beyond the dreams of prophets? Henry Merwin, the hero of this novel, finds an altogether different answer when a miscarriage of a scientific experiment sends him a hundred and twenty centuries into the future. In the course of his strange and exciting adventures he sees a world that is further from our own than ours is from the Cave Man. But it is a world that is a logical outgrowth of ours--and is brilliantly real, and, perhaps, prophetic. Mankind is divided into three nations and four species and has developed a scientific civilization whose latest feat is regulation of the weather--with the result that wars are fought for climate control. Into the vortex of one of these wars, Merwin is drawn against his will. The mechanized marriage regulations tear him from the girl he loves; and the equally mechanized military regulations threaten him with death for the crime of individuality. His service in the Department of Insect Distribution, and his amazing exploits in the last days of a crumbling world, lead toward a climax that is as breath-taking as it is vividly imaged and graphically told.