A daring novel of mankind''s strange and startling destiny. . .

Here is a novel to equal Arthur C. Clarke''s great work, Childhood''s End. It tells with frightening clarity of a desperately stricken Earth - wracked by overpopulation and plagued by famine and despair.

It tells, too, of a new breed of men and women - twenty-first century lotus eaters caught up in a mysterious euphoria which will ultimately threaten all life on this planet: the drug-induced world of ''happy dreams''. Do these ''happy dreamers'' herald the end of the human race - or the next extraordinary step in the evolution of Man?

First published in 1963.