Having just talked up an enormous series, let me mention a stand-alone science fiction novel for those who don't have the time to read 4,000+ pages.

The book is Courtship Rite, by Donald Kingsbury. And before I promote it, I feel I have to warn for it: this is a book about polyamorous cannibals. If that information intrigues you or fills you with glee, read on! If not, uh, this is probably not the book for you.

In addition to polyamorous cannibals, Courtship Rite contains: questionable libertarian politics, clunky prose, dubcon, noncon, and underage.

So now that I have told you all the reasons not to read it, why should you read it? Really awesome women.

Courtship Rite takes place in a world where the ideal relationship is a six-way marriage. Marriages are expected to build over time, starting with a couple and extending from there, but the maran-Kaiel family can't do anything the easy way. Instead, three brothers decided to marry each other--and then start collecting wives.

The first, Noe, is a spoiled rich girl--and a skilled strategist, microbiologist, and diplomat with a love for extreme sports.

The second, Teenae, is a child-bride bought from slavers. The brothers think she'll be more biddable than Noe and find instead that she's a terror who can only be appeased with promises to teach her higher mathematics, her greatest passion.

For a third, the family has its eyes on Kathein, a brilliant chemist/engineer--until, for political reasons, the head of their tribe orders them to abandon that courtship and marry Oelita instead.

Oelita is out-clan, a wandering philosopher, and a vegetarian--which, in context, means she doesn't eat people. To every other character in the book this is a horrifying heresy. The head of the tribe thinks that by marrying Oelita, the maran-Kaiel can control her efforts to spread her heresy. The maran-Kaiel come up with a different plan: kill Oelita and marry Kathein as planned.

Shockingly, this does not go smoothly, particularly once various family members meet Oelita and decide they quite like her after all. . . .

And then, further mucking up the works, there's the se-Tufi Who Walks in Humility. Humility is one of the Liethe, an all-female tribe of cloned assassin/courtesans who secretly control the world's politics. Like the rest of her tribe, she unquestioningly follows the orders of her elders . . . until she meets the maran-Kaiel and decides there might be some things she'd like out of life for herself after all.

There's no sex on page between any of the women, but the co-wives all clearly love each other and have relationships with each other independent of those with their husbands. They talk, they play games, they do science, they cuddle, they kiss, they eat babies (did I mention the cannibalism?), and, despite having distinctly different personalities and interests, form a believable family. It's a fandom that cries out for domestic F/F fluff . . . with, of course, cannibalism.

Hehe, I started to read this book a year or two ago but got distracted and never finished it. This description totally makes me want to pick it back up!

Yesss. My work is complete!