I've read several novels by Tepper, and all of them have had similar merits and flaws. Tepper has a very fluid, easy-to-read style and does some interesting world-building; however, she makes her feminist perspective/point pretty dang obvious, throws in kinkiness and sex for no real apparent reason (I don't have any problem with a little bit of sex if really does something for the plot, etc. -- Tepper just seems to like to put in kinkiness for its own sake), and tends to wrap up her stories with endings that seem just a tad on crack. It's been a while since I read this particular novel, but I remember it pretty much having all of her normal pluses and minuses -- unfortunately, this one was really overpowered by its on-crack-y ending which involved . . .

SPOILER WARNING

. . . sub-dividing babies? Shades of the one Tepper novel I read where the ending involved a bunch of people melding into a giant being which had super-sex with another giant entity in order to save the world . . . and a man with a penis as long as a whip . . .

END SPOILERS

Anyway, this novel just fell into the surrealistic weirdness trap that Tepper seems to often fall into. Maybe there are novels out there by her where she manages to avoid this, but I have yet to read one where she manages to completely. Ay, well.

RELEASE NOTES:

In George Mason University's Robinson Hall A, in the 4th floor English faculty hall, to the building's back left -- right inside the doors, in a box labeled with the Bookcrossing Zone sign.