Nuclear war caught everyone by surprise in Marin County, California. Suddenly the safe, familiar world was replaced by one in which horses drew cars, eyeglasses were hard to come by, and people's pre-war positions were mostly irrelevant to their new status. So Happy Harrington, who has no arms or legs, becomes very powerful because he knows how to fix machines that nobody else can keep running. And Walt Dangerfield, whose space mission ended in never-ending orbit just before the war has, through his broadcasts from his satellite, become the only link between isolated communities across the globe. And only Bonny Keller knows that Dr. Bluthgeld, the man responsible for the destruction, lives quietly among them...