Allan Stern and his secretary Beatrice Kendricks awake in New York City, one thousand years after an asteroid destroys most life on earth. Just his luck, Allan is a master engineer and can make explosives, build bridges, fly bi-planes, etc. Beatrice is the gorgeous, spunky blond along for the ride (she even gets kidnapped by a giant gorilla at one point!).In the first part the discussion is of what happened, and how they will save themselves and rebuild civilization.
When a slightly mad robot drunk on AC, wants you to join an experiment in optimum ecology--don't do it! After all, who wants to argue like Disraeli or live like Ivan the Terrible?
In a colony on the island of Titan, very close to the Kraken Sea, Ethan and Jessica work on a project. Going through unhappy marriages, they find solace in each other as they work to launch a power generating station from Titan's cryovolcanic activity.
The very men who claimed mental superiority because they were free from superstitions and divine disillusionment were themselves victims of their own sophism, and while they thought themselves crowned with enlightenment, it was naught but the Phrygian caps of their prejudices toward the material state.