This book contains, what for me, was a failed ‘hook’. For 200+ pages I had nothing I really cared about other then some tidbits about the world of Tiamat. The failed hook is that somehow we are supposed to immediately care that two young lovers are separated. This is flawed because we do not know the characters much and have not experienced them growing to love one another. The characters lose something but we lose nothing as we have no emotional investment in them.

The writing craft leads a little bit to be desired from as well. There are many instances of ambiguous pronouns which will hit you squarely as odd, shatter some of your immersion, and force you to reread the sentence for meaning.

This book does have things about it to enjoy but compared to many of my other favorite reads there was far too little enjoyment for reading investment.

Bottom Line: I would not have bothered finishing this book if it was not for my goal of reading all the Hugos. I am also slightly grateful this read is over.

Pretty enjoyable. The characters were rather single-minded, though, which made them unrealistic and lacking in texture. However, I’m not sure if that was intentional (archetypes?) or just a representation of SF writing at that time. Still, worthwhile for its world-building, which was excellent.