Following an ecological disaster on Earth, humans take to space in rockets. Plutonium has left many people disabled; these 'misfits' are all left behind on Earth, where they attempt to rebuild society.
The protagonist, a pregnant woman with a blind cobbler husband, works with the judge. A series of infanticides sweeps their community: mothers are killing their 'perfect' children because of the growing arrogance of older, able-bodied children. After the protagonist's husband is assaulted at the school, the protagonist shifts the crime of the infanticides to the judge, who loved the children and wanted them to be perfect, thus protecting the actual murderers.
'The Utopia Plain encounters the Earth survey ship St Petersburg orbiting a supposedly lifeless planet. Aboard are a parrot and a new-born baby.'
Source: Author's website.