Books

Sorry, completely forgot to come back to this comment!

I really enjoyed it, on the whole. The plot was tight and well paced, with a slightly languorous main plot intertwined and illuminated by a series of flashbacks. It does well with its central concepts (especially its core concept, the nature of individual identity and self for someone who exists as part of a larger entity), and has an interesting take on use of language (particularly the way it handles gender).

The only real criticism is that in places the prose itself can be a little clunky, occasionally getting itself tangled up in messes of commas and subclauses for no good reason. But mostly the editing seems tight enough to avoid this becoming a major problem.

I'd give it a 4/5 on my recommend-o-metre; enjoyable and worth the time (which, incidentally, isn't very long as its a relatively short read), but not without qualifications.

I've just started reading the sequel, after a few weeks break, so I'm hoping that'll manage to keep to the same standards.