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The book is well-written, but I found the results anti-climatic. I don't expect that McHugh would write a rant on communism, and the idea of a Sino-Communist future is at least different; however, considering that it is based on the Chinese Communist model, her society works better than I think likely given the results of Communist China had prior to a huge influx of hard currency from capitalist countries, which wound up leading to an increase in slave labor there. Obviously, gay characters have had difficulties in capitalist systems as well, but I do think Western capitalist cultures are far more forgiving of deviance now and in the future than Sino-Communism is likely to be. There, gayness is considered a crime and gay men by definition criminals, who are considered irredeemable. As I indicated, one gay character chooses suicide once he has been suspected. Zhang does develop from an aimless if talented construction worker to an organic engineer--but he is still not a deeply developed character. However, the novel is quite good for a first effort. I'm sure McHugh may well have improved with subsequent efforts. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/