When adventurer, Barry Horn, is chosen to be the worlds first Rocketeer, the first human to set foot on other worlds, he is reluctant to accept the job until he receives a vision seemingly from his late wife telling him he must go or all humanity will be lost. When his mission goes wrong, he winds up in a suspended state. Conscious that he has failed, but unable to move, he has visions of mankind through the centuries. He witnesses his descendents going into space, creating the first living robot, sees the rise of the Robot Corporation, and its enslavement of man. When he is finally awakened, Barry finds that the knowledge he possesses after his long slumber is man's last hope to survive against the robots.

Hugo and Nebula Award winner, Jack Williamson, has crafted a sweeping epic of space opera, harkening back to the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon serials of the 1930's.