The Nothing

In a future society divided by extraordinary "talents" such as pyros, teles, and porters, eighteen-year-old Jean Carlysle is angry, restless, and ready to rebel. After a fight with her father over work and money, she slips into a tavern to play at glamour and meets a strange young man who plainly says, "I'm a Nothing." His unsettling honesty and the danger that follows pull her into a confrontation with the police and into a world far more controlled than she imagined. Jean soon learns that Claude, the man she met, is a fugitive from a preserve where untalented people are hidden away. Their arrest brings them before Claude's father, Mensor Williams, a powerful prescient known as one of the Big All, who declares that Jean and Claude are meant to marry. But Claude resists having his future decided for him, and Jean begins to challenge the certainty surrounding her own life. As Williams explains the fading of talents and the preserves' role in safeguarding people and knowledge for a possible rebirth of civilization, the story reveals a tense blend of romance, fate, and social warning. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.