Published posthumously, this dystopian novel was written between Frank Herbert's classics The Dragon in the Sea and Dune. EMASI! Each Man a Separate Individual! That is the rallying cry of the Seps, the resistance force engaged in a class war against the upper tiers of a society driven entirely by opinion polls.
Those who score high, the High-Opps, are given plush apartments, comfortable jobs, every possible convenience. But those who happen to be low-opped live crowded in warrens, facing harsh lives and brutal conditions.
Daniel Movius, ex-senior liaitor, rides high in the opinion polls - until he loses everything, brushed aside by a very powerful man. Low-opped and abandoned, Movius finds himself fighting for survival in the city's underworld.
There, the opinion of the masses is clear: It is time for a revolution against the corrupt superprivileged - and every revolution needs a leader.