 This book opens with some of the most original, laugh-out-loud, viciously and accurately pointed sociopolitical satire you will ever see anywhere. It is about an alien anthropologist named Benaroya, who, after many years of filling out applications and taking tests, finally has the opportunity to come to Earth to study the human race firsthand. She thinks we're adorable. Unfortunately, about halfway through the book, all of the sharpness and humor that characterize the first half of the book disappears. It becomes a dull, typical slog, and it basically has no ending. Okay, that's it for the short review. Now I want to say a few more things about this book. If you've watched my reviews, then you know that one of my pet peeves is an author who can't finish what they start. This is a classic example of an author just dropping the ball. I don't understand it, and it infuriates me. I was so disappointed when I first read the book that I loaned it to a friend of mine to see what she had to say about it, and her evaluation was the same. It was jaw-droppingly great at the beginning, but then halfway through it just turns to crap. But the first half of this book is so strong and so original that I've kept it in my library ever since I found it 15 years ago. I'm so enthusiastic about what little is original about this book that I want to read you a few examples. Right here on page one, never forget these bushmen must eat other creatures in order to survive. Not a single one of their leaders, presidents, popes, kings, basketball players has a shred of ethics whatsoever. Carry a weapon at all times and don't hesitate to kill. The anthropologist was taken to the hospital wing and x-rayed as she lay under a sheet. Her teachers had said that earth treatment was laughable, now to find out if this was true, but just being here was exhilarating. Benaroya had studied these bush people. She examined their artifacts, watched a zillion films, read books, tried to understand their seemingly senseless customs, but this was reality. Genuine human beings, how awesomely thrilling. They moved about, starched coach, rustling, pinching and probing her, little hearts beating, warm breath going in and out, sweat glands hard at work, taking themselves ever so seriously. Benaroya felt suffused with love. She stared rapidly at their faces and was overwhelmed when they sneezed, blinked, coughed, or licked their mucous membrane lips. Especially she loved to hear them chatter as they strutted and posed and performed their rituals like earnest chickens. Okay, let's recap briefly. We know that male bodies are incomplete because of that stunted Y chromosome, hence the male's lack intuition, which merely means they're less intelligent having a closed off awareness. But since primitive earth exists at a level of barbarism, the male is the chosen sex. Large, crude, stupid, barbaric males with criminal tendencies are worshipped. Flattering movies about them are turned out by the hundreds. They run government, business, religion, sport and crime, which are all actually the same thing. These two paragraphs on page 86 kind of sum up the whole book here. The course called Primitive Food was really tough, boy. It took a full semester to learn to distinguish earthy food from their droppings. On the final exam, you had to tell a bowl of beans from a bowl of hot rabbit raisins. Benaroya flunked that damn test twice. The color and temperature were identical for Pete's sake, and the taste was only slightly different. Then came Savagery 1 where you learned that earthies lived under a dark cloud called law, and that law was based on threats of violence. Put money in the meter or we'll drag your car away. Pay taxes or we'll lock you up. Fill out all the blanks or you lose your job. Then the do-gooder groups arose, condemning violence and advising a return to law, but law was based on violence. From this circular non-reasoning, the Rysemian students learned what it meant to be earthy. It meant sick from word go. Jody Scott wrote a sequel in 1984 called I Vampire. It's about a 700-year-old female vampire from Transylvania named Sterling Oblivion, who falls madly in love at first sight with Virginia Woolf, who happens to be Benaroya wearing one of her favorite human bodies. I tried to read it and I couldn't. It was awful.