Wild Seed has two principal characters. Doro and Anyanwu are almost literally towering divinities moving among the less powerful people who also possess parapsychological powers, as well as among almost mentally drone-like ordinary humans. Doro is nearly 4000 years old, born in ancient Egyptian regions. As a boy of thirteen he entered "transition," the equivalent of adolescence in Butler's parapsychological people. In Mind of My Mind (1977), one of the four novels related to Wild Seed, an explanation of Doro's power and weakness is provided. He did not come through transition completely whole, although he possessed enormous psychic power. As a result he was doomed to exist only by wearing the bodies of living humans, who in effect died as soon as Doro possessed them. He had no body of his own. He could be male or female, baby, child, adult, or elderly. He could move through bodies swiftly, killing...