To paraphrase myself, this is the most ambitious book I have ever seen...or lifted. The book's weight is as serious as its subject matter. It is both a work of art and a story of love that burned perhaps too brightly.

None of William's other books come from a core as deep as this. Except when they borrow from it.

It is a book written from the heart about the limits of a heart. Perhaps his has gone where yours fears to tread, but there's only one way to find out.

When the author, William F. DeVault, laid pen to paper over a decade ago and breathed life into the Panther Cycles, he had no idea where they would take him and his already storied path as a poet.

Within two years there were 93 of these cycles of poems, over six hundred and forty pieces, all told, been divorced, exiled, reviled and resurrected as, in the words of Yahoo, the Romantic Poet of the Internet. And through it all he chronicled the rise and fall of his love affair with an artist he had met through the internet and who would become a closeted symbol of passion, joy, emotional catharsis and rebirth.

After a decade long struggle with his own demons, he has finally bowed to the will inevitable and unleashed all of the works in one massive volume: The Compleat Panther Cycles

My God, what have the fates wrought? Even the poet admits that some of the works contained herein are, in his words, "unworthy unto themselves"...but just as you can argue with a brush stroke on the Mona Lisa, while admitting the masterpiece the completed work is, so must you give the devil his due.

This five pound book, over six hundred full-size pages, terrifies the poetry establishment in that it raises the bar so high as to re-establish instantly the author to the top of the pyramid. The aching romanticism, the burning passion, the delicious madness and the joy of discovery all pour out into these pages, proving that the poetic arts are not dying a suffocating death under the masses of third-rate pamphlets mockingly called "books" but ready to be reborn and recast as a transcendent artform, willing to compete for shelf, purse and bookshelf space with the novels that have so commanded the marketplace for too long. Finally a book of poetry with depth, breadth, scale and width, a book of poetry that takes more than an afternoon to read.

I have to give special props to Jillian Ann, the much-respected techno-music artist and gothic model whose image so beautifully dominated the cover and illustrates the contents. She makes my tongue sweat. If the real Panther possesses half the beauty, grace and sexual energy as the model, no wonder this book is so thick and intense.

I also have to admire the conceit of having not one introduction or foreword, but three different authors speak their minds, giving a tip of the halo and horns to the author's myriad schools of fans and readers. I particularly enjoyed the ironically catty tone of the foreword by one of his subsequent lovers, Brigit, as she made the case that the woman who inspired these works was, in her estimation, unworthy and deserving of the honor of the poet's craft and love.

In summation, I have to agree with Mari Laureano, the erotic poetess from New York, who states in her back cover notes that "William F. DeVault is the catlayst poet of the digital renaissance. Lucent, ardent and contemplative, he gives us for the first time as a volume the original flow of poems that captivated, excited, scandalized and seduced an entire cyber generation."

Bravo! And...if I may be so selfish, Encore!