The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit by Storm Constantine

Oh yeah, and they can use the energy they generate during sex as magic. At the end of the gruelingly painful process, the har (word Storm uses for an individual Wraeththu) wakes up even more beautiful than before, and possessing of a shiny new set of genitals, which looks like an orchid and can act as either a penis or vagina. The Wraeththu transformation, called “inception” is similar to a vampiric transformation, and reminded me of Louis’s transformation in Interview with the Vampire. The Wraeththu start out as human boys and are turned by either swallowing or injecting blood from a Wraeththu who’s already been turned. Wraeththu takes place in a world where humanity is becoming extinct due to a race of men-turned-hermaphrodites called Wraeththu poised on the edge of achieving world domination. You may want to skip this review and those of the next two books if you’re not interested in reading about impossibly hot guys boning with mutated genitalia. You may call me a “mouth-breathing yaoi fangirl” (as one reviewer so kindly put it), but I can’t help myself. After reading it again and reading others’ reviews of it, I realize it’s a little problematic and the plot is sketchy, but I still love the descriptions and characters. Wraeththu was one of my favorite books in high school so I decided to revisit it for nostalgia’s sake, and to examine what it is about the book that attracts me so much.

The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit by Storm Constantine