Enjoyed it more than I expected to, to be honest. Knowing that there are dozens of other books published after this one, it would be easy to look at this story as mere set dressing, but McCaffrey does well navigating the line between telling this story and setting up future tales. I was pleasantly surprised by some of the twists and developments, and it's clear she worked out the details of the science-fantasy elements of the story very carefully and (so far as I can tell) thoroughly.