"Washington destroyed completely before the government could escape. With Manhattan in ruins, that leaves no -". There was a click as the television receiver was turned off. "That"s that," said the man near it, "The United States is washed up." This was the terrifying scenario in which, unbelievably, the whole of Asia - some four hundred million people - in grave danger of defeat by America which now consisted of just six men. In a brilliantly imaginative novel guaranteed to keep the reader on tenterhooks from beginning to end, Robert A. Heinlein, the doyen of science fiction writers, has truly excelled himself.