Kenniston is the classic science-fiction protagonist from the Golden Age of the genre, when the world lived beneath the overarching terror of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear exchange. If you are familiar with stuff written in this genre by current or recent authors—including this reviewer—you will likely recall much dark behavior and antisocial actions on the part of the cast.
Kenniston is a man of 1951, a rational, civic-minded thinker who believes in doing the right thing. The nuanced cast of characters is not chock full of a bunch of degenerates and freaks like in the works of King or LaFond, providing a community in crisis setting that—in light of our present warped ethos—seems almost unrealistically, sane.
If you ever find yourself wondering what kind of world many of our best and brightest once envisioned for us, listen to this recording of City at World’s End, and realize that it was not considered in the least to be utopian fiction, and represented a strong attempt by a strong writer to present a gritty setting depicting Americans in crisis.
As apocalyptic premises in science-fiction go, I like this one a lot, and will not spoil it for you.
