tristram foxe and his wife beatricejoanna live in their skyscraper world where official family limitation glorifies homosexuality eventually their world is transformed into a chaos of cannibalistic diningclubs fantastic fertility rituals and wars without anger it is a novel both extravagantly funny and grimly serious there is an alternate cover edition hereoutcast trader daja along with her fellow magesintraining journeys from winding circle to the gold ridge mountains where drought threatens widespread famine there daja creates an astonishing object a living metal vine and dajas dealings with her former people reawaken a longing for familiar waysdaja must choose should she return to the traders or remain with the winding circle folk who have become her family