ISBN 0-812-54293-2 (US pbk), Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-34683,,, ISBN 0-812-54294-0 (Canadian pbk)

"Philip Wing is a brilliant architect -- the designer of the new 'Wonder of the World'. While proud of his creation, Wing does not feel warmly towards those who brought the technology that helped to build it. The Messengers are aliens who have come to Earth with a message, a new religious philosophy that seems to sap human aggressiveness... and has taken Philip's wife away from him.

"While Wing struggles with his own life, on a distant world a living Goddess struggles with the future of her people. Teaqua, the immortal Thearch of the Chani, has concluded that her people must enter fully into the consortium of the Messengers. To do so, she must die, in a way that will let the people know she has gone before them into the wider Universe.

"The Messengers believe that there is only one being who can build a fitting tomb to achieve this purpose -- Phillip Wing. To embark on the greatest challenge of his life, Wing will have to leave Earth...and abandon his own humanity". [jacket blurb, US pbk, 1990]

"Kelly explores the literal and figurative boundaries of alienation in this evocative novel of a man's search for his own humanity". -- (in Library Journal ).

"Interesting novel by peripheral cyberpunk". --Bruce Sterling (1992).

"Not since Octavia Butler's 'Xenogenesis' trilogy have I read a book that so well expresses the psychological turmoil of the ultimate loss of personal identity. Philip Wing has left behind his planet, his history, and the physical form of his human body. He is now among an alien species with alien thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Implanted into his head is an interface that speaks to him... even his mind is not entirely his own. And if a serious identity crisis is not enough, he is also under pressure to create an architecture unlike any he has ever known." --Henry W.Targowski (in Mark/Space , December 1996).

Recommended.