The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit

The First Book of Wraeththu Wraeththu Chronicles, #1

by Storm Constantine

Immanion Press, 368 pages

English language

ISBN:: 978-1-904853-37-4

(5 reviews)

Storm Constantine's first novel, expanded and re-edited from the original 1980s edition, with extra appendices and chapter heading illustrations.

"Terror hung in the air like the foul-smelling smoke from a gutted house, where people have been burned alive inside. I could feel it. "Wraeththu. I shiver to say the word. Something has happened to them. Where did they come from? How did it happen? Why is it spreading like a plague? "I have seen. I have seen what they do. I have seen their faces. They always take their dead with them, always. There is a secret. Dont you understand? A secret. Wraeththu are not what they seem. They are more than they seem."

Storm Constantine's first novel, expanded and re-edited from the original 1980s edition, with extra appendices and chapter heading illustrations.

Ground-breaking when they first appeared, the Wraeththu Chronicles chart the history of a new race of hermaphrodite beings who come to replace humanity on Earth. Daring, erotic and magical, these editions include 'deleted scenes', which have now been restored and expanded. The book also includes new chapter heading illustrations by acclaimed fantasy artist, Ruby.

4 editions

GoblinReads reviewed The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit. by Storm Constantine

Review of 'The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit.' on 'Storygraph'

2 stars

I wanted to like this so badly, post apocalyptic magical gender fuckery, heck yeah!

Unfortunately it just kinda falls flat. Supposedly there's this mutation that turns young twinks into androgenous hermaphrodites and unlocks their inner magic and they're the next step in human evolution, bring together the "softest parts of man and hardest parts of women."

But really they're all just kinda dicks that want to kill each other and take over the world before the other. And the magic never really matters and is rarely used. The first half was a kind of run away love story, learning about the wider wold adventure. I liked that part. But halfway though <spoiler>the main character is reborn by his father (who's secretly God) into a new body to be the King of men, I mean Wreathru. </spoiler>

From there it just become some poorly political chosen one story about how this society of new men has to (violently) take over the world before those violent brutes over there take over the world!

There's a lot of tries to be deep commentary about how men were too corrupt, greedy, and jealous and how this new race is above all that. But none of that goes very far as all the central plot points are based around those very traits.

Cool ideas, poor execution.