A megalomaniac Boer frontiersman wreaks hideous vengeance on a Hottentot tribe for undermining the 'natural' order of his universe with their anarchic rival order mocking him & subjecting him to the humiliations of his own all too palpable flesh. A specialist in psychological warfare is driven to breakdown & madness by the stresses of a project of macabre ingenuity to win the war in Vietnam. Both the 18th-century Jacobus Coetzee & the 20th-century Eugene Dawn are in the business of pushing back the frontiers of knowledge & are dealers in death who denounce their own humanity & spurn their feelings of guilt. In these two narratives Coetzee has crystallized in their absurdity & horror the extremes of scientific evangelism & heroic exploration.