Plot Summary
The novel takes place in a far future in which human societies have developed divergently on some 6000 planets. Many of these worlds are shared with intelligent nonhumans, although only one alien species (the mysterious Xlv) also possesses faster-than-light travel. In an attempt to find a stable defense against the planet destroying phenomenon known as "cultural fugue" (a state of terminal runaway of cultural and technological complexity that destroys all life on a world via a singularity), many human worlds are aligned with one of two broad factions, one generally permissive (the Sygn) and one generally conservative (the Family) by today's standards.
The story opens on the planet Rhyonon. Korga, a tall, misfit youth, undergoes the "RAT" (Radical Anxiety Termination) procedure, a form of psychosurgery which makes him a passive slave, after which he is known as Rat Korga. After he has lived under a number of masters, Rat's world is destroyed by a conflagration. This is later explained to be the result of cultural fugue, though the explanation is far from conclusive, especially since Xlv spacecraft were present in the Rhyonon system when the disaster occurred. Because he is deep inside a mine shaft at the time, Rat Korga survives (though badly injured), the only known being to ever survive cultural fugue.
The action then moves to Velm, a Sygn-aligned world that humanity shares with its native three-sexed intelligent species, the evelm, and where sexual relationships take many forms—monogamous, promiscuous, anonymous, and interspecies. Resident Marq Dyeth, an "industrial diplomat" who helps manage the transfer of technology between different societies, is informed that Rat Korga is his perfect sexual match by a former connection in the powerful and mysterious WEB. Equipping him with a prosthesis (the rings of Vondramach Okk) that restores the initiative he lost due to the RAT procedure, the WEB sends Rat Korga to Velm under the pretext that he is a student, and he and Marq begin a romantic and sexual affair. They go on an unusual hunting expedition and return to a dinner party which becomes chaotic due to the disruptive presence of visitors from a Family world and intense planetwide interest in Korga. Soon after, Rat Korga is forcecd to leave Velm and be permanently separated from Marq (their pairing having been an alien cultural experiment) because their interaction was creating a threat of cultural fugue.
Read more about this topic: Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand
Famous quotes containing the words plot and/or summary:
““The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)