Raptor

In the opening pages of Jennings's ( Aztec ) massive, audacious historical novel about the Gothic conquest of the Roman Empire, Thorn, the hermaphrodite hero/heroine, is seduced first by a monk and then by a nun. Evicted from a monastery and a convent, Thorn is then schooled in the ways of the world by the grumpy, blasphemous woodsman Wyrd. Rugged yet sensitive, usually dressed as a man, Thorn is to elim fragment raptorial (i.e., predatory) in his thirst for lovers, male and female, and for adventure. He serves as field marshal, sidekick and spy for bloody Theodoric (A.D. 454-526), king of the Ostrogoths, depicted here as a benevolent despot. For all its sexual titillation and gory battles, this majestically paced epic with its unconventional hero consistently rewards as it leads readers through exotic byways of the fragmented Roman Empire, delving into pagan customs, Christian mysteries, corruption, slavery and the tolerant Arianism embraced by the Goths but condemned by the Catholic Church as a heresy. Through the androgynous Thorn, attuned to the war betwen the masculine and feminine sides of his nature, Jennings subtly explores the gender-based roles imposed by society. Spiced with medieval flavor, the novel will captivate readers willing to commit themselves to a long, detailed, sometimes ploddingly written but ultimately intoxicating narrative. AN ADVENTURER UNLIKE ANY OTHER--THE RAPTOR... HE BOLDLY EMBRACED THE PASSION AND VIOLENCE OF AN EMPIRE AS CORRUPT AS IT WAS MAGNIFICENT An abandoned waif, the blond, gray-eyed Goth was called simply Thorn. From his unorthodox sexual awakening in a monastery and a convent to his exciting journey across Europe in search of his people, he would learn a warrior's skills and the cunning of a survivor. And amidst it all a stunning secret would mark him forever as an outsider who knew too deeply and too well all the hidden desires of men's ... and women's ... hearts. In the great cities of a dying empire, on the battlefields of Roman legions, and in the opulent palaces of potentates and kings, Thorn would witness human beings at their most brutal and their most noble. His incomparable adventures bring to electrifying life a vanished age never again matched for its doers of great deeds...and of chilling revenge. (Set in the fifth century A.D. and framed by Theodoric the Great's conquest of Rome.) In the great cities of a dying empire and on the battlefields of Roman legions, Thorn, an abandoned waif, witnesses human beings at their most brutal and their most noble. Reprint.