Please be advised that this book is about gay sex. Sure, there's magic and power struggles and *technically* the characters are hermaphrodites, but like Anne Rice, Storm Constantine REALLY likes gay men, and that's what she writes about. If you don't want to read about guys doin' it, don't request this book (or basically any Storm Constantine book ever). If you like Anne Rice or Tanith Lee or maybe Poppy Z. Brite, you'll probably like Constantine.

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i positively gobbled this monster volume up! i had never read anything like it and i found all the charcters to beautiful and charming to not love it. It is post-apocalyptic Earth and the human race is taking a back seat as the wraeththu come to the fore. they are androgenous beings, capable of being both male and female and they have their own political struggles, let alone dealing with the humans who still remain. they are sensual creatures and Constantine gives us all the "dirt" on their loves and losses.

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Loved this book, loved the characters, loved the world they inhabit, loved the plot.

Intriguing story of how humans evolved into more than hermaphrodites. Written from the perspective of three guys. Has elements of current culture and society. Lots of in-house jargon; I had fun figuring it all out.

Teens could handle the sex parts, not that graphic. Romantic, political, historical all in one. I could live there, except I'd be their slave or something. Hmmm...

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Started it for the premise, continued it for Pellaz, hated it and couldn't finish it because of Cal.

If you want to see my full review, I have put it up on Goodreads (full of spoilers, so I won't say here):
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/554502661

Honestly, this series started off like it was going to be an amazing, unique story but quickly dissolved into pulpy, poorly thought out gay obsession and the toxic nature of the characters.

I had high hopes, I tried so hard to look past the imperfections, but it became too unbearable in the end.

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A story that goes downhill all the way.
I have been a reader of sci-fi and fanatasy for over 40 years, and I haven't encountered such drivel covered up with such a lyric writing style in many years. For starters, this is actually a romantic novel (lots of swooning and surrendering and tenderly being touched) with a veil of sci-fi and mystic fantasy, so true sci-fi fans will be disappointed if not angered.

Story #1 is about the kidnapping and conversion of a human child by a member of a hermaphroditic mutant group (all males who have been converted by having their blood mixed with a mutant's), and his development (don't worry, he had [...] leanings anyway, so he wasn't really deviated much).

Story #2 is about a true mutant child growing up and replacing his father as a leader (he has a crazy "mother" - did a female writer really author this?).

And story #3 is basically about the kidnapper in story #1 and his wanderings as a search for his true self (Dorothy in Oz), including his willingly being a (...).

A significant problem for me is that there are literally hundreds of pages wasted on self-examination and dialogue which demonstrates these creatures being petty, vain, sexual, vain, angry, vain, lost, vain, sorry, vain, jealous, vain, egotistical and vain. The writer has reduced the hermaphrodite into a creature that uses sex for love, power, mysticism and procreation, over and over (to death), and when they are not having sex, they are worrying or talking about it, a lot. The female aspects of the hermaphrodite is reduced to crazy, fearful, emotional, vain, romantic and sexual charanterizations that seem to come right out of cheap romance novels.
The description on the back cover of the book says "humanity won't die without a struggle" against the mutants, but in fact there are very few pages dedicated to talking at all about true humans except as frightened, barren losers who have already been supplanted by the all-beautiful but clannish hermaphrodites who can levitate, baffle minds, throw fireballs and perform telekinesis after they have been "elevated" to mystical-power level through (guess what) hermaphroditic sex and some undescribed training. All relationships seem to boil down to un/requited love affairs or sexual encounters. In story #3 the core character has her/his major revelation after willingly submitting to rape.

The overall story is resolved very poorly. Human women finally show up towards the end of story #3 as a hidden superpower mutant type of their own (a feminist must have complained to the author). And the original mutant who starts this whole process on earth is actually overthrown in under three pages flat at the end of the whole thing through a thin dialogue that can be summed up as the equivalant of Oz's Dorothy saying "I always knew I had the power all along, so go away!", and he/she does.

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