AND STRANGE AT ECBATAN THE TREES

A genetically engineered society, divided into a population programmed to rule and another designed to be ruled, arrives at a crisis of self-knowledge brought on by threatened war and the rumored reappearance of a quasi-mythical sea monster. The protagonists are a craggy, rebellious old sage trying to perfect a bizarre art form called ""neuro-drama"" using reanimated corpses as actors, and a young court functionary appointed to spy on his activities. Together they are persuaded to recreate and deploy that ancient, forbidden weapon the laser, and bring themselves up against various moral, aesthetic, and metaphysical issues of egregious pretensions. Flaccid and highfalutin.