Signet 4th printing mid-Sixties paperback (copyright 1948.) Cover by ???, 158 pages, 50 cent cover price. Condition is Fine (-): tight and square with flat spine - covers still have gloss. Age tanning is mild and uniform (insides of covers are darker) - this looks unread. There is some writing (in blue pen) in inconsequential places: some numbers crossed out at top right of first (blurb) page; some checkmarks on the next page's list of other titles by Heinlein; more checkmarks and a couple of words on the advertisement for other Signet books on the 2nd to last page. - no other marks or stamps.

Hamilton Felix is a born leader. Faced with any problem, he will surmount it. Placed in any situation, he will control it. He is the star line in a star line of men - the culmination of a 300 year program of controlled genetics… a program that is doomed to failure, because Hamilton Felix can see no reason that the race of man should continue. He refuses to have children unless he can find some purpose to human existence. This book follows Felix's quest for that meaning, in a future and society that are much changed from our own.

Serialized in Astounding April & May 1942.