an elephant), they successfully run the farm together. Even though his intelligence has increased fivefold, so has everyone else's. He is still considered a relative simpleton, but has very much come to terms with that. In the end, when nearly all the humans leave Earth, he decides to stay behind as leader of a colony of now sentient animals and formerly mentally disabled people. Dr. Peter Corinth Physics researcher who spent a brief period at Los Alamos in WWII. He is one of the first to understand the change. After the change he experiences an emotional battle to stay loyal to his wife, although he has feelings for another woman in his office. He later becomes a pilot of the first spaceship able to explore the galaxy. As part of that exploration, he again crosses into the energy-damping field. His mind quickly becomes unable to work the complex controls, and he must wait for the ship to move back out of the field on its own. Sheila Corinth Wife of Peter Corinth. She is a housewife before the change. The first effect she goes through when the change begins is a philosophical realization that her life as a housewife is "better" than that of her non-conformist friends. Later on she begins to lose her sanity from having to deal daily with the existential crisis. Her story is typical of many people in the book who didn't have the intelligence before the change to know how bad their situations were. Later she goes into her husband's lab to use an electroconvulsive therapy machine there to destroy parts of her brain, bringing her IQ down to about 150, with which she is more comfortable. She leaves Peter, and in the last scene we see her introduced to Archie Brock's farm. Felix Mandelbaum Neighbor of the Corinths. Before the change he is a Jewish executive secretary of a local union. He is 50 years old and was born on the lower East Side of New York. Later on he becomes "executive of the world." Reception Some have argued that the book is too short, which might have been a result of editor pressure at the time. For example, Thomas M. Wagner writes: "the book does feel somewhat rushed, as well as heavily edited, and I felt there was more Anderson was wanting to tell me. Anderson focuses his plot on a handful of