Geta is much drier than Earth, with eleven separate bodies of water large enough to be called seas; most of the land area is desert.

Terraforming was never, or very minimally, initiated on the planet's biosphere, leaving it very inhospitable to the descendants of the original settlers, who have become mythic, God-like creatures to its denizens.

Apparently the only Earth-life on Geta are humans, bees, and the "Eight Sacred Plants", including wheat, soybeans, barley, and potatoes.

They also make use of steam engines and electricity, but are handicapped by an apparent lack of fossil fuels to smelt metals and provide power.

They have also learned how to extract information from a "Frozen Voice of God" — an optical data-storage crystal left over from the original settlers.

In particular, they have the power of deciding, during times of famine, who must make the ultimate "Contribution to the Race": All individuals are rated in various ways on their "kalothi", or fitness to survive.

Ultimately, all the priest clans are trying to attain dominance of the planet through the use of new technology, propaganda, treachery, and "war", a new concept in this world.

"[1] John Clute, although troubled by its didactic libertarianism and Social Darwinism as well as the way Kingsbury "rigs his Getan society" to establish his political ideas, concluded that "the book is a considerable accomplishment, that it's a feast (of the imagination) and great fun while it lasted, within its covers.

[2] Dave Langford reviewed Geta for White Dwarf #56, and stated that "Kingsbury throws you in at the deep end, to flounder for several chapters in complex Getan nomenclature, society and thought.