Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

368 pp. A stunning, many-layered speculation on the future of humanity, on interaction between cultures, on love and sex, on religion and politics, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is an enduring masterpiece by one of science fiction's greatest writers. The only survivor when his home is utterly destroyed, Rat Korga is transported to a new life on the planet Velm. Escaping a society that suppressed and enslaved him, Korga joins a vast, rich interstellar culture and finds himself sharing a world with Marq Dyeth, the person this civilization's officials have calculated to be his perfect partner.