This book is a new English translation of the classic science fiction story written in 1961 by
Herbert W. Franke widely held to be the most important German-language science-fiction writer.
A dead city on a distant planet two groups of people trying to explore it. Step by step they
penetrate the outer ring with its ultra-modern technology the half-ruined medieval city center
and finally the mysterious center. But is the eerie city really dead? Suddenly the factories
start working again the automatons intervene and somewhere in the background there is still
something hidden that could perhaps awaken. But is it people or machines? Herbert W. Franke
leads the reader into an oppressively strange world only after the startling resolution does
it become clear what lies behind the adventures of the intruders - not a cosmic strangeness
but a threatening development that could affect humans in the same way. Franke's novel is thus
a parable of the evolution of all humans in the age of technical communication ...
