The Myth of Self
This quartet of adventures explores and explodes the concept of selfhood on Al Amarja. Characters in Greg Stolze's "The Hive" subordinate themselves to an insect group-mind. In "The Bliss of Death¸" by Robin D. Laws¸ divine rapture threatens to obliterate the identity of the island and everyone on it. Robin's other adventure featured in this collection¸ "The Doppleganger Plague¸" shows method acting taken to an outrageous extreme. Finally¸ Jonathan Tweet's "Deep Troubles" studies an Al Amarjan subculture in which people change personalities more often than clothes.