What a charming story. This very much reads as classic fantasy, but at the same time, quite distinct from other classic fantasy powerhouses of the era. It is structured more like a folktale, and really succeeds in that regard. The story is comprised of quite a few smaller stories and challenges, similar to something like the Odyssey. Each of these smaller narratives paint a larger story that simultaneously builds the world around it. This was probably my favorite aspect. Seeing the main character grow and develop as aspects of the world become clearer to the reader, but also feeling like you're reading a classic hero's tale.

However I found the writing style to be very... of its time. It is very disconnected from the characters and frequently and randomly shifts between an omniscient narration to limited omniscient narration based on a character's perspective. The prose was stuffy, making it feel more like you were reading an objective account of the events that happened rather than feeling like you're hearing about the journey from a storyteller, which I feel would lend itself better to the style of story.

All in all, I did enjoy this quite a bit. I'm excited to pick up the next few of them pretty quickly considering they're so short. I'm particularly excited to dive into the more recent three books. I'm eager to see how her writing style matured after 30 years of being one of the most skilled science fiction authors of all time.