Cons: A bit of a slow start, occasionally muddy action/motivation. Pros: satisfyingly surprising, delightfully normalizing of queer relationships, and a wonderfully readable adventure tale- can't wait for the next one. The enemy starts out fairly one-dimensional, but there are subtle nuances that hint at the eventually-more-fleshed-out understanding of them. There are also some nicely descriptive aspects of different cultures, though not all of them get that level of detail; the people surrounding the final element to be encountered in the book were caricatures compared to the other cultures described, though this arguably be due to the rarity of that element and the language barrier. I was delighted to find that Laurie Marks thanked Rosemary Kirstein in the acknowledgements-- another author whose work I've recently and very thoroughly enjoyed. I could happily read another ten books in this series, but am happy to have three others to look forward to.