The novel investigates a premise that has long intrigued feminist novelists: what if women ruled the world. After millennia of a world controlled by men, it is often assumed that women, if given real power which men have abused for centuries, would surely run the world with compassion and nurturing care.

The novel cautions against such simplifications. Power is more complex. “The shape of power,” Mother Eve writes, “is always the same: it is infinite, it is complex, it is forever branching” (373). Initially, the power of the skein is dismissed by women and men alike as a novelty and little more than glorified static electricity. Unaware of the possibilities of their new power, women test the skein’s energy in games that become YouTube sensations. As the generation of newly-invested women comes to terms with the implications of their power, the skein emerges initially as an instrument of justice. Their response is to defend themselves against the threats of men. But the power twists their perceptions, warps their morality, and within only a few years turns women into the very monsters they had long fought against. As it turns out, power, not gender, corrupts.