["Atlas Shrugged"] is a work of fiction, a piece of inspired and thoroughly exciting story-telling that drags only in some of the lengthier speeches which tend to recapitulate points already established by the action. But it is so much more than a mere novel….

"Atlas Shrugged" will satisfy many readers on many separate planes of satisfaction. It has its Buck Rogers flavor—and pace—for those who delight in science fiction. It can be taken as a philosophical detective story…. It can be read as a Socratic dialogue on ethics, or as a profound political parable. Or, as Miss Rand would herself prefer, it can be accepted as a poetic celebration of man as an heroic being, "with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

It is as a political parable that...