MISSING MAN By Katherine MacLean Disaster and death are in store for The City unless the Rescue Squad can find the missing man in Nebula Award winner Katherine MacLean's eagerly awaited first novel.
George Sanford had a gift for guessing right the first time and very little else going for him. When Ahmed and his other friends in his gang grew up, they all advanced in school and got jobs, but George couldn't score well on tests, and there aren't any jobs for guys like George in The City. George never even wanted to sign his name, let alone fill out applications and reports. When he bumps into his old gang leader, Ahmed, now a member of The City's Rescue Squad, George is swept up in the excitement of a hunt for a trapped girl. It is George who finds her, with his special talent. George rapidly becomes the unconventional pride of the Rescue Squad. With Ahmed to run interference for him with the bureaucracy, George becomes a "consultant," and his talents grow. And George begins to change. With each success he discovers more about himself and more about the society he lives in, and he begins to doubt. When a missing computer man's knowledge is put to use by an irresponsible gang of revolutionaries, threatening to destroy The City, George rescues the computerman and meets Larry, warped boy genius and leader of the gang. But Larry asks questions George can't answer, and after Larry escapes, George knows he has to find him to continue the discussion. Only George is captured by Larry and forced to become a tool of Larry's mad iconoclasm. In Larry's control, George's talents pose the greatest threat of all to The City...George himself has become the missing man.
KATHERINE MACLEAN lives in Portland, Maine. She has long been one of the most respected writers of Science Fiction and is the winner of a Nebula Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America for "The Missing Man," a story which forms part of this novel.
