SOJALS rating:

Awful (1/5)

I most recently read this on the 30th July 2002.

Giant climate-controlled farms float high in the sky, producing the food required for our massive population.

Our protagonist is Vic Stirling, a journalist. He's searching for his half-brother Johnny. Smuggling himself onto one of these giant platforms, he finds a band of misfits secretly living on the platform. He also finds Johnny leading the band and promising them the moon, more or less literally.

Now Vic finds himself caught between the immediate danger of these rebels and the initially remote danger of the forces of Food Technology Authority.

I read many of Bob Shaw's books back in the '70s and '80s. He was a good but variable writer. This is a thriller of fraternal conflict with an SF backdrop. However, even with some quite dramatic scenes, it doesn't quite make it, and ends up as an uninspiring, run-of-the-mill British SF novel.

So this was not Bob Shaw at his best. To get a better idea of his works, read "Light of Other Days", "The Palace of Eternity" or one of the "Orbitsville" trilogy.