In the perfect city of Lucasta life is easy, bountiful, and completely planned for everyone. New fashions and material goods abound. Everyone constantly communicates with hundreds of friends through their computing device, and benevolent corporations watch over people as good parents. To the new generation, hate and prejudice are just a fairy tale, and pain, disease, and cruelty are fading into a distant memory. So is personal choice. Teenage Meliora feels as if Lucasta is suffocating her. Always an unusual child, she discovers the dark secret of a world where secrets don’t even exist any more. But what can be wrong with a perfect world?