One of the author's major works of science fiction, created by assembling a striking sequence of novelettes into a coherent whole. An impressive work second only, perhaps, to "Pavane." It is the eve of twentieth-century man's final conflict. But Stan Potts is ready for Armageddon In his auto, specially equipped with his own unique survival kit, he heads for Corfe Castle, the Purbecks and the girl of his dreams. It is to be an eventful journey This is both the story of one lonely man and a compulsively readable account of a civilisation's catastrophe. Across Potts' gaze pass the ravaged survivors; the mutant genius born outside his time; the villagers of the new stone age with their credulous, sexually complex lives; the iron age horsemen; the terror of the sea-borne marauders Until finally, after the pillage, the cruelty of superstition, the fragility of love and its horrific consequences, the story leaps from the Dark Ages into a new awareness.