Better Angels

With his astonishing future vision, Howard V. Hendrix has emerged as one of the new masters of science fiction, drawing extraordinary praise for his debut novel, Lightpaths, "a taut...space-age slice of life" ( Publishers Weekly), and its "brilliant" (Locus) follow-up, Standing Wave.

Now Hendrix meshes virtual reality, deep-space exploration, and human nature in a novel starkly breathtaking in its...