Their stories skate across years, building to a single confrontation when the fate of all-human and alien-balances upon a knife’s-edge *A young woman with inhuman powers rises through the insurgent ranks of soldiers in the borderlands of Night. *Genetically modified twin brothers desperately search for the lost son of a human/alien couple in a criminal underground trafficking children for unknown purposes. *A violent warlord abducts a young girl from the agrarian outskirts of Dusk leaving her mother searching and grieving. In the four habitable areas of the planet-Day, Dusk, Dawn, and Night-the haves and have nots, criminals and dissidents, and former alien conquerors irrevocably bind three stories: Having destroyed Earth, the alien conquerors resettle the remains of humanity on the planet of Eleusis. (Dec.The Matrix meets an Afro-futuristic retelling of Persephone set in a science fiction underworld of aliens, refugees, and genetic engineering. Brissett deftly handles the challenge of a multitude of characters all being the same people in a multitude of places that are the same place, while exploring complicated questions about identity. Brissett’s punch of a debut is bewildering at first, but never so confusing as to frustrate the reader, and repeating elements and symbols help tie everything together-not neatly, for so much of the world is broken, but enough. Gradually the protagonist comes to understand what’s happening and step into the role of savior for the mysterious Elysium. As the fragments of story grow larger and more complex, Adrianne/Adrian continues changing, but Earth remains the same dark place, haunted by an event that alters or kills most of the population. But sooner or later, Antoine/Antoinette is always lost. The one love in her/his life is Antoine/Antoinette, who appears in a variety of roles such as lover, sibling, and friend. Adrianne/Adrian moves back and forth through recent time, switching sexes and situations-always with the same people, albeit in different roles-with each life interrupted and restarted by a mysterious computer code that he/she is occasionally vaguely aware of.
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