Synopsis: "On the planet Zintilla, a humanoid species has evolved into two distinct types: natural humans who live rustic lives in the wilderness, and 'Crystal Beings' who have altered their bodies over the generations through participant evolution. The Crystal Beings lack legs, reproductive organs and excretory appendages, and they live beneath the Cowl—a colossal roof covering a large portion of the planet's five continents—in a society devoted to knowledge and logic, where emotions are abhorred as 'chaos.' Somewhat predictably, a group of young Crystal Beings manages to escape from the cowl with the help of the unevolved 'bipeds,' forming a rebel movement to end the joyless, antiseptic Zintillian hegemony." —Jack Fennell