Ayn Rand's Anthem is science fiction of the "after the big one" genre. The world has undergone a cataclysmic reversal; technology and science have all but disappeared, and the accepted social structure is relentlessly communal. Individualism is not tolerated. Indeed, speaking the "unspeakable word" I is the only crime which merits capital punishment.

The protagonist, Equality 7-2521, is a misfit. Despite lifelong indoctrination, he defies society's laws and mores, at first with an overwhelming sense of guilt and shame, and later with an increasing certainty that he, and not the society, is rational.

He travels the epic hero's Journey of Light, descends to physical and moral depths (torture and self-betrayal), suffers a trial by fire to defend that which he considers more sacred than life itself, and finally emerges victorious. Fleeing from the city of his birth, he runs to an "uncharted forest" where he discovers remnants of...