Age of Anxiety

On his seventeenth birthday, Larry faces the most important choice of his life: remain in the drugged comfort of childhood or step into the uncertain demands of adulthood. In a future society where children are raised on an "unworry" drug that erases fear and responsibility, his robonurse presents three capsules that will decide whether he stays in blissful dependence or begins the irreversible path to maturity. As his father welcomes him into the "Age of Anxiety," Larry is thrust toward a world built on pressure, competition, and the burden of choice. Over three days of indecision, he enters the adult city and sees how grownups live amid noise, danger, and struggle. A street vendor's hard survival and a chance conversation with a stranger reveal that anxiety is not merely fear, but the tension that comes from having something worth protecting and striving for. As Larry wanders farther from childhood's shelter, he begins to understand that adulthood means accepting uncertainty, responsibility, and the challenge of becoming fully human. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.