The Founder

Rowley's ( The Vang ) latest is an episodic tale of a man's ambition to build a giant spaceship and sail it to liberty among the stars. Even after Dane Fundan completes his massive project, the last free space-colonization vessel, and offers passage to those who want to escape the domination of Earth's World Government, his unholy alliance with wealthy, corrupt Arabs threatens to turn the craft into an interstellar slave-ship. In the absence of a plot beyond the chronicling of the journey itself, the book moves along without compelling force. Each new scene of cruelty on Earth, on the starship, or on the New World is a self-contained drama in which the band of expatriates keeps learning the same lesson: treachery will be found wherever conscious life appears. Despite the 25th-century setting, Rowley's message is a time-worn platitude: people must purge the dross from their own souls or risk incurring their own destruction. (Dec.)