Not as immediately immersive as A Fire Upon the Deep, somewhat disappointing after part-readin A Deepness In The Sky recently, I'd have to described this as a curate's egg. The world building, given we've been here before, is wonderfully well handled, as is the integration of the High Lab humans into the Tinish Society.The tines are the most realised aspect of the book - Woodcarver is, thankfully, largely absent from this book, as is (sadly) Pilgrim. The replacement cast, among them Amdi and others from the first book, is given great depth, and the reader can feel a real connection to these characters, this strength extends to some of the humans, but by no means all.What isn't handled well is the passage of time - the novel takes huge leaps without real purpose, leading to some frankly bewildering passages. The division of the human society is also mystifying - no understandable motivation is given, other than some hand-waving around Ravna's influence in society.All in all, a good book, but by no means a great one, and in that respect, I guess its a disappointment.
