DAW Books, 1980. Paperback, stated 5th printing. This 1975 novel is the first in the "Ler" trilogy, which also includes "The Gameplayers of Zan" (1977) and "The Day of the Klesh" (1979). Humans and superhuman variants expand into space.

The Ler had been genetically created to be a new race of supermen, and the experiment had not been entirely successful. They were superior to normal humans in certain ways, but all too human in others. Grudgingly, suspiciously, the overpopulated billions of Earth allotted the families of the Ler a special reservation - a last wilderness area where they could live their odd lives, contribute their brilliant talents to humanity's desperate needs - and yet be under constant surveillance.

His name was Meure and he hired out on an alien ship to see the universe. There were ler aboard that vessel-transmuted humans who were partial supermen-and specifically there was the ler girl Flerdestar who had a mission. When Meure and Flerdestar were marooned on the world they called Monsalvat, they were confronted by a planetary enigma involving time and space. For Monsalvat had a myriad human species, all alien to each other, and all in awe of the Mystery that dominated their isolated planet. Here is the long-awaited major novel by the author of THE GAMEPLAYERS OF ZAN and WARRIORS OF DAWN. It is a masterwork of alien wonders, human ingenuities, of the past invading the present, and of the perverted legacy of the legendary mistress of the first starship, the mad ler Sanjirmil...