there, as all four children must weave into other braids as after-parents. Ler communicate mainly using a verbal language called Singlespeech. Each ler has a name consisting of three syllables, e.g. "Maellenkleth", though their intimates sometimes use shortened versions of the name. Various categories of objects always have names with the same numbers of syllables, e.g. stars have four-syllable names. As in the Chinese language, each Singlespeech syllable has four possible meanings, but unlike Chinese, Singlespeech is not a tonal language. Instead, each Singlespeech word has four "modes" corresponding to the four classical Greek elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water), with each mode having a symbolic meaning borrowed from the Divinatory tarot, and complex grammatical rules govern the allowed transitions from mode to mode. The meanings of Singlespeech words are therefore highly context-dependent, and careful attention must be paid to mode transitions during a conversation. Elemental symbolism extends also to the meanings of ler personal names, but each individual keeps their "governing element" a secret; this latter custom complicates ler marriage negotiations, since each foreparent must choose the other foreparents' second (afterparent) mate, and the governing elements of each foreparent/afterparent mating must be complementary: Earth with Air, and Fire with Water. There is also a less frequently used mode of communication called Multispeech, which uses all the available communication channels, verbal and nonverbal, to convey information in a much more detailed fashion than Singlespeech ever could. After the completion of the Ler trilogy, Foster continued to work on the development and explication of Singlespeech, which he renamed Layaklan (which name back-translates to 'Understanding' in English). A substantial Layaklan-to-English lexicon and an outline of a corresponding English-to-Layaklan lexicon (both of which were written by Foster), accompanied by supporting articles concerning Layaklan, were available online but were subsequently lost. The Morphodite Trilogy This series consists of: The Morphodite (1981), Transformer (1983), and Preserver (1985). The title character is a reluctant assassin who can change forms, invariably alternating sex and decreasing in age as he/she does so. The stories themselves are centered on either a different planet or in space, with short segues that lead the reader from place to place. In The Morphodite, we discover the initial character, Rael, as a fearsome assassin who has never been unleashed upon the world. He (as he/she then is) is caged in "The Mask Factory", and his captors fear him much more than any of their