Note: Expansion of "The Planet Buyer" and "The Underpeople": This is the complete novel as Smith initially intended it to be. The publishers in the 60's felt that it was too long to publish as a single novel, so Smith split it into two parts, adding a small amount of material at the end of "The Planet Buyer" and at the beginning of "The Underpeople" so they could stand separately. The 1994 NESFA Press edition includes this added material in an appendix.

Synopsis: "Rod McBan, one hundred and fifty-first of the name. The richest boy in the Galaxy. He was born to inherit the End of the World Station. He had almost failed the trials of the Garden of Death. The Onseck was chasing him. His father had died in a cruelty-marked corner of space, where no one could find a lenient death. When trouble began, he trusted his computer. The computer started playing and reached the Earth. McBan went to Earth. "A mythical and singular masterpiece of science fiction, the cycle of the Lords of Instrurnentality composes over the course of its paintings a legend of future centuries, imbued with poetry and a deep humanity. An unforgettable vision of our future, with an ambition comparable to Isaac Asimov's Foundation or Robert Heinlein's The History of the Future."" NooSFere May 5, 2022