The Sleeper is an actress named Flora who, suffering from a particularly invasive cancer, has chosen to enter cryogenic suspended animation until a cure might be found. Waking fourteen hundren years later, Flora finds the world much changed.
Earth is home to exactly one million people.
Over a hundred of these are Sleepers, whose capsules survived the Cataclysm and allowed them to live on. Now, with the council in charge of worldly affairs uncertain about the Sleepers' status, Flora is woken to help with the decision. With Flora, we learn about the new way of life, but Flora's is not the only viewpoint we share. From stubborn, egocentric Abel to Timmy, just emerging from early childhood, from the warring lovers, Souda and Kiril to the ugly, intelligent Nat, the characters are warmly human and recognizable. Abel's son must prove himself, a jealous man redeem himself, and Flora must adjust to the death of her hopes and the rise of a new and splendid type of immortality.