Walk the Moons' Road

I bought Walk the Moons Road because the author is a fellow cellist in our orchestra. He's a fine cellist, but I was curious to know how he does at writing. Well, he's terrific! This is a good story with a crackling plot that kept me reading, but what I enjoyed most was his humor, especially his funny wordplay. He captivated me from the start with his definition of the (Falneresc) idiom "Walk the Moons Road." A list of a dozen or so very plausible definitions ends up, "to engage in a difficult enterprise, one whose outcome is uncertain; to be in love; to die." I also loved one of his characters' attempts to speak Eloian, one of the many languages spoken on this planet. Hilarious! And the Lilith--the character at the center of the plot, neither man nor woman--is a truly enchanting creature, whom Jim treats with great tenderness. A good book, highly recommended.

One of the best sci-fi books I have ever read. An unusual world to which human came from the sky. In the Island Sea human beings mutated to give many different races: people with four fingers and toes, people who became dolphin-like, human who acquire indigenous symbionts and many others. The Vli race is the most unusual: they got liliths, intersexual creatures without which they cannot propagate. To make matter worse two indigenous non-humanoid races are living on the same planet. It is a pity that the author has not written sequels to this novel.