An Exaltation of Larks

Although it begins on a normal-seeming college campus, Reed's latest (following Beyond the Veil of Stars) expands to cover a setting and theme as grand as all the permutations of the galaxy. The plot concerns Jesse Aylesworth, the sexually voracious editor of a college newspaper, whose life of seduction and muckraking is interrupted by the appearance of a strange Indian/Turtle who explains that he has come to offer the gift of eternal life to a select group of vertebrates. His group plans to release humanity from the prison of mortality by turning the universe into an infinite loop in which all possible pasts and futures can occur. The only catch is the unidentified traitor at Jesse's college, someone who wants to pervert the immortals' plans for indubitably heinous reasons. Despite the fact that Jesse's shallow attitudes toward sex aren't fully explained until the book's finale, the book rides far on the strength of Reed's virtuosic, amusingly surreal images of his brave, new, infinitely variable world. And, in an appealingly modest manner, it comes back to earth and an acceptance of the reality we know. (Dec.)