High Justice begins Jerry Pournelle's own Future History, a universe which he shared with Larry Niven in their collaborative novel, The Mote in God's Eye. Here we see, with all the vivid detail for which Pournelle is known, the Fall of the West, and how in its death throes it gave birth to a society that would conquer the stars themselves, as real people battle desperate odds, both for their own survival and for something more - for High Justice.
Kevin Senecal was nobody's hero. All he wanted from life was a professional career, a strong union to protect him, and a comfortable company-owned housing well away from his Welfare Slum origins. As a senior engineering student at Cal Tech, Kevin seemed on the verge of realizing his ambitions, when one night he was attacked by a murderous "youth gant" - and accidentally killed one of them while escaping. That's when it all changed: "You don't kill juvies in this town," the Homicide Detective told him. Suddenly Kevin Senecal was on the Run, and on all of Earth there was no place to hide.
Earth was stagnating from a lack of resources, from corrupt governments that stayed in power by keeping their people in ignorance and poverty, and by the established power structures that stifled the creative technologies that could solve the planet’s problems. But the governments and power structures didn't yet control space, where bold new techniques could freely be applied and the vast resources of the solar system could be utilized by such courageous men and women as: • Aneas MacKenzie—he had believed in the man he had helped to reach the office of the presidency of the United States, and had tirelessly rooted out corruption wherever he found it, until the trail led straight back to the White House. After that, no place on Earth was safe for him. • Laurie Jo Hansen—she controlled a multi-national corporation more powerful than many governments. Unlike those governments, she wanted to see Earth’s problems solved and reaching the high frontier was the only way to do that. • Kevin Senecal—he had made the mistake of fighting back against a juvenile gang, and accidentally killing one of them while escaping. Both the gang and the law were after him, and on all of Earth there was no place to hide. • Ellen MacMillan—a young employee of the Hansen Corporation who fascinated Kevin, she was on a secret mission, and the biggest secret was her real name. Two complete novels—High Justice and Exiles to Glory—in one volume by a New York Times best-selling author, telling of an Earth sinking into a morass of corruption, red tape, and failure of nerve, while a dedicated few dare to reach for the stars.