One day 27-year-old Charlie Johns wakes up to find himself in a totally different society or world. The beings don't seem to possess gender, and they want him to study them as much as they study him. Somehow he magically learns their language and they show him around a culture without conflict, sexual competition, or gender -- where children and grownups acquire knowledge via the "cerebrostyle" which writes learning effortlessly on the brain, and endless energy comes from the "A-field," derived from negative matter. The Ledom, as they call themselves, lead Charlie to believe they are Earth's future. But something is not quite right about the whole operation, although it takes Charlie a long time to put his finger on it. Sturgeon said he wanted to write a "decent book about sex," which inevitably touches on religion, and this 1960 novel is a curiously relaxed affair -- discursive and mildly thought-provoking, but not terribly gripping.
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The review of this Book prepared by David Loftus