The famous science fiction novel by William Gann, a stock market trader and forecaster, is considered significant for sharing several aspects of the author's financial astrology.

On the surface, this book is a novel which begins as a coming-of-age romance between young stock trader Robert Gordon and the love of his life Marie Stanton. Gordon has a gift for trading and is deemed a wunderkind of sorts by fellow Wall Street analysts. Later, the romantic aspects give way to the story of a fictional war in which the protagonist plays a role. Companies, with whom Gordon is involved, develop sophisticated technologies that dramatically alter the course of the conflict.

Beneath the veneer of a conventional novel are aspects of William Gann's theories on stock market price changes. The dates mentioned correspond to the movements of the planets and the moon. Those devoted or otherwise interested in Gann's methods have studied this novel as a means of understanding how the author planned his purchases and sales of company stock. Other earthly events, such as the flooding of the Mississippi River, are also held to be significant in the context of Gordon purchasing and selling stocks.