World building 10/10! Everything else rates a tepid ok. Characters: yeah. Language: competent. Gay yearning: present. Pacing: well ok, the pacing sucks- Nothing changes for the first 75% of the whole book & that is a lot of pages. But there's cool magic, aeons of history, multifaceted politics, different religions & castes, all in a lush, breathing world. Sadly there just doesn't seem like there's enough plot to fill that lovely world.