In a future where the Earth has been savaged by overpopulation and over-farming, robots are considered more valuable than humans and sand must be altered to create artificially fertile soil. Ex-convict Knowle Noland, the hallucinating sea captain of the Trieste Star, finds himself wrapped up in a plot to incite a global war that will wipe out millions. War, it seems, is the only way to drastically reduce the population and create a better world for those who survive. Brian W. Aldiss was born in Norfolk, England, in 1925. Over a long and distinguished writing career, he has published award-winning science fiction (two Hugo Awards, a Nebula Award, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award); bestselling popular fiction, including the three-volume Horatio Stubbs saga and the four-volume the Squire Quartet; experimental fiction such as The Report on Probability A and Barefoot in the Head; and many other iconic and pioneering works, including the Helliconia Trilogy. He has edited many successful anthologies and has published groundbreaking nonfiction, including a magisterial history of science fiction (Billion Year Spree, later revised and expanded as Trillion Year Spree). Among his many short stories, perhaps the most famous is "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long," which was adapted for film by Stanley Kubrick and produced and directed after Kubrick's death by Steven Spielberg as A.I. Artificial Intelligence.