/lit/ - Literature

Imagine Gibson, Land, Sade, Bellmer.

Dead Girls, the first book in the cycle, lays the groundwork for the rest of the series. The book focuses on Ignatz Kwazh, an angst ridden, obsessive nebbish, and his exotic paramour Primavera. Upon entering puberty, Primavera, like many of her contemporaries, contracted a nanotech virus which transformed her into a white, plastic skinned lifeform, called a "Doll" or "Lilim" (after Adam's first wife Lilith) by a fearful human populace. Males are apparently immune to the virus, but can become carriers through contact with the sexually ravenous Lilim--their saliva carries agents that infect male gametes, insuring that any girl-children will be born dolls.

Dead Boys begins with Ignatz mourning the loss of Primavera. He aimlessly wanders the streets of Bangkok, carrying Primavera's excised sex organs in a jar, occasionally chewing them for the high they provide. Ignatz's tenuous grip on reality is further loosened when he begins to receive messages from 1000 years in the future, from a Lilim named Vanity who claims to be his daughter. Vanity is being hunted by Lord Dagon, who may actually be Ignatz himself. Dead Boys also introduces the concept of Meta, the name for the virus behind the doll plague. The virus, which has moved into the male population (transforming its victims into fanged, sexless creatures called Elohim), is now affecting the very fabric of reality.

Dead Things, the last book in the series, follows Lord Dagon, a ruthless doll killer who roams the solar system in search of his prey. Here, Calder reveals that Dagon is indeed a future incarnation of Ignatz, transformed into Elohim by the Meta virus. Discovering that he is the key to ending the Meta plague, Dagon/Ignatz travels back in time to prevent the Meta virus from infecting reality and changing the course of human history.