In the 24th Century, mankind lives in Utopia. Everyone is happy, apart from one man. 'A misfit, a throwback, a genuine freak' is how eighteen year old Bard (with typical eighteen year old romanticism) describes himself.

'The Last Romantic' was full of bravado, for in the perfect society individualism was not encouraged, and the threat of 'rehabilitation' was ever present. But Bard had a plan - he would enter the Caves of Sleep until he was twenty-one, his own man without let or hindrance, and in control of a fairly large fortune. But even in Utopia, plans have a way of going awry.

Richard Cowper (1926-2002) was the pseudonym of John Middleton Murry Jr, a British SF author.