Bron Helstrom is in some trouble. Wandering one night through the unlicensed sector on Triton, one of Neptune’s moons, he’s swept up into a micro-theater program run by a woman who calls herself The Spike. A fling with her quickly becomes complicated, no less for the growing fear that the war between Earth and the outer systems may soon be coming to Triton. Bewildered and enraged by her behavior, traumatized by the war, and generally in a state of confusion concerning gender, he decides that the only thing to be done is to become a woman. The book is in direct conversation with Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, exploring similar questions of kin, gender, sexuality, and the ambiguities therein. Questions which continue to beguile us today, and which Delany is especially skilled at following down the darkest and most mysterious streets.