 In some respects, this foreshadows the 1999 film" The Matrix".However, Toromon does have a real enemy of sorts, on another plane of existence, and at the end of the book there is a cosmic conflict which leads to this entity being prevented from conducting further malicious experiments on Toromon.The stories of the Fall of the Towers trilogy were originally set in the same post-holocaust Earth as Delany's earlier" The Jewels of Aptor"; however, linking references were removed in later revised editions.