Prologue Summary

The Stars My Destination is a tale about the power of imagination that focuses on the exploits of a very unlikely protagonist. He starts off as a goal-less refugee, endures as a hunted, marked man seeking his destiny in vengeance and closes the tale as an evolutionary marvel, a messianic character ready to lead humans to the next stage of their existence.

Gully Foyle is not a hero. Gully Foyle is not an anti-hero. Gully Foyle is an uneducated, skill-less, merchant marine who survives 170 days in the airless vacuum of space aboard the wrecked Nomad. He is not a likeable man or character, but the brutality of his bare survival is an engaging opening into an entirely new world.

It is the golden age of the human race with all the habitable worlds (three planets and eight satellites) occupied. It is a time...