It consists of three linked stories, each originally published separately in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction.

The common thread is a family, beginning with Kiv peGanz Brajjyd, his daughter Sindi, and her son Norvis.

The original three stories are bracketed by narrative which lays the foundations for them and details the passage of time between them.

Having once failed to persuade a single Elder, Kiv bursts in on the entire High Council with his words.

Watching from concealment, she sees the Earthman Jones, who supposedly had gone to the Great Light, never to return, take Rahn inside a building.

Advised by the Earthman Smith, he finds a growth hormone that doubles the yield of the staple crop, the peych-bean.

Suddenly he finds himself expelled, the credit for the hormone going to a blockhead, Dran peNiblo Sesom, apparently with the connivance of Smith.

Cast out by his grandfather Kiv, with no source of income, unable to speak his own name, he signs on as a sailor using the name Norvis peKrin Dmorno.

His natural abilities mean that he quickly becomes indispensable, being promoted to first mate under the Captain Del peFenn Vyless, with the promise of his own ship, if he re-enlists.

His father used to make a lot of money from Edris powder shipments, before the Elder Kiv peGanz Brajjyd eliminated the need for it.

However, in attacking the Elders he is accused of blasphemy and stoned, barely escaping with his life by swimming a lake.

The hapless Dran peNiblo Sesom, who had grown rich making and selling the hormone under the protection of the Elders, is lynched by a mob.

He and Del now take on the Elders to stop the use of the hormone and persuade farmers to plough the excess crop into the ground, as fertilizer.

Through agitation and occasional strongarm tactics, they force the Elders to follow their plan, ignoring tradition.

Damon Knight wryly dismissed the novel as badly plotted, saying that the planetary ecology "seems to be made up entirely of peych beans, hugl bugs, and simpletons.

"[1] Galaxy columnist Floyd C. Gale notes that "SF is full of stories of the uplifting of backward cultures by the Good Earth, but few depict her as the sponsor of a heartless program that replaces happiness with its pursuit.

"[2] The story has been mentioned as an example of "juvenile escapism" of the 1920s morphing into "thoughtful social science fiction" in early American sci-fi.