It is common wisdom that a novel should not have to be explained by the author. The trouble with that is that when it is subtly complicated, readers, and especially reviewers and critics, do not understand it, though they think they do. One reviewer insisted on calling the main character “Anton,” apparently assuming that I had put myself into the story. Most seemed to have missed the nuances entirely. So at this point, 33 years after its initial publication, I am explaining it, and those who do not appreciate that have no need to read further. Other wisdom says that the main character of a piece has to be compatible for the reader; you can’t have a nasty man, for example, as a hero. Well, Aton violates that; he does some truly ugly things. When this novel was first published I asked members of the Science Fiction Writers of America—I was then a member, before I quit it in disgust—to comment on it, as I wished to learn where I succeeded and failed. One of those who did so was Andre Norton, today one of the few genre writers who has had more novels published than I have. She said, in essence, that when the going got rough, the main character had to be decent. I took that to heart, and ever since my main characters have been decent. They may help account for the much greater commercial success of many of my later novels.