On the day that Aldair found that his world had abruptly turned upside down, his history-changing quest began. And he did not even then know that it was to be a quest. Aldair had been a true acolyte of the Faith when it happened. And then he found himself an accursed outcast, the one against whom all hands were raised. His only friends were those who had been his most vicious enemies. His only course led to the lands of horror. And his final goal had to be—that most forbidden of all lands, the dwelling place of the dead, that island of total terror known as Albion.

"Highly recommended," was the verdict of the Science Fiction Review on the first Aldair novel, which brought a young not-quite-man into exploration of a world strikingly similar to ours yet different. The comparison made then with Clifford Simak's City holds true for this new account of Aldair and his world. For his world and ours are the same...but his lies in the future and seems destined to parallel the history of our own. Where is humanity? What legacy has true mankind left to its manlike descendants that they must relive our past? For Aldair has been forced into the role of a future Magellan, who must travel down the coasts of unmapped continents, facing monsters, winged wizards and great dangers, to find a knowledge older than the history of his entire race.

"I have done more than my share of wandering. In a few short years, I have been slave, scholar and master of ships. I have played no small part in the death of two great empires. I have nearly been eaten whole by the shapeless thing that guards the Great River. I have even soared above the earth like a large ungainly bird... "Finally, I have come to know the handiwork of Man, in the sad and fearful land of Merrkia, across the Misty Sea. The terrible secret of that race has come to light at last, though it is a thing I can scarcely fathom even now. And if I have learned nothing more in my travels, I can say in all truth that I am proud to be the beast I am..." — Adair, late of the Venicii. The Earth was still green and fully populated—its "men" were the products of a science that might have begun with the Dr. Moreau of Wellsian legend. Fate had chosen Aldair to seek the truth about Man. Why had Man created these new beast-races—and above all where had man gone?

"One of the strangest adventurers in the history of science fiction. It is millennia from now and mankind has vanished from the Earth, under mysterious circumstances... But he has left a legacy behind him: a host of intelligent species artificially enhanced by means of humanity's genetic science. Aldair is one such product, an intelligent, upright pig. It is not given to everyone to meet his Creator face to face, but it was to be the destiny of Aldair and his band of humanoid friends. For the trail to the secret of their existence finally led to the stars..and ultimate confrontation with their makers—the last of Earth's humans.