The R-Master.

Philadelphia:: J B Lippincott, 1973.. Book Club Edition.. Hardbound . BINDING/CONDITION: red binding; a slight spine slant; a Very Good book, with a Good dust jacket. The R-Master by Gordon R Dickson. Philadelphia: J B Lippincott, 1973. Hardbound, 8.5 inches tall, 186 pages. The World Economic Council said the world had b become Utopia. There should be no cause for dissatisfaction. But for those who were still restless, there was the new mind-stimulating drug R-47. Those who rook the drug were engaging in a sort of lottery whose rare winners would be super-geniuses and whose losers might be fit only for asylums. Etter Ho, whose brother was one of the losers, took the drug on the eh chance t hat, if he won, he could cure his brother. But what he became when he emerged from the mainlining was something non expected. For he became a menace to Utopian order, a danger to those who knew him, and the only man who might, just possibly, diagnose the real illness of the world.. 8vo (8.5 inches tall) . Description: By the middle of the twenty-first century the World Economic Council supplies the basic needs of every individual. And for those people who want to increase their personal value and effectiveness in society, there is Reninase-47, an intelligence-stimulating drug. In rare cases, however, R-47 does massive damage to the mind. In even fewer cases it creates a super genius -- an 'R-Master,' None of this interests Etter Ho, who clings fiercely to his independence, to his right simply to wander the ocean in his sloop Sarah -- until his brother Wally takes R-47 and becomes a statistic on the negative side of the ledger. Now Wally's body lies encased in a cryogenic capsule, his life processes suspended. Etter, as an ordinary citizen, cannot afford the medical procedure which might revise his brother. As a step toward obtaining the status he needs, Etter takes the drug, and emerges as an R-Master. It is apparently a position of unrestricted privilege, but when he asks to contact other R-Masters, only one old man will speak to him. Etter begins to realize that the World Economic Council has created, not a Utopia, but a perpetual prison for mankind. Rear gutter code ''F 7'' indicates a printing date of February, 1975.