Wild Seed

This fantasy novel is a well-written and unusual treatment of two different forms of personal immortality. It also tackles ethics and the problems of living with special powers of the mind.

Doro is thousands of years old. He has the power to transfer his mind, instantly and effortlessly, from one body to another. When he does this, body A dies, and the original mind of body B is permanently erased. All of his bodies are mortal, but his mind lives on, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind him. He's become ruthless with age, and indifferent to death: if he wants to cross a river, he transfers to a body on the other side. He's obsessed with breeding humans to obtain other powers of the mind. He has only one power, but he uses it to intimidate and control people, killing any who resist.

Anyanwu is hundreds of years old. She knows the workings of her body intimately and can reshape it at will. She doesn't age, and she can heal herself rapidly from disease or damage. She can reshape herself into an animal, or a man. She's a compassionate healer. She can't reshape others as she does with herself, but she can help them considerably.

This book is their story. It's an unrelentingly serious and rather painful story, and not one that I want to reread often, but it's a good enough story to be worth rereading occasionally. And it does have a happy enough ending, eventually.

So far, I've read it in full only twice. But there are other times that I've picked it up and read some of it.