I feel a bit bad giving this book two stars. It is ambitious and literate; the writing is accomplished. I've certainly rated other books at a higher level than I otherwise might, out of "this is a good book, but not quite my thing" feelings, because I can still recognise quality work even when it's not to my taste. And the thing is, there were parts of this book that I did enjoy.

But it's just so bloody interminable. You'd think decades of reading SFF would have accustomed me to bloat, but this is so sprawling, so slack, so self-indulgent in its meanderings that it honestly drowned out, for me, a lot of the more interesting qualities of the book in a way that went past "not for me". I was so irritated, for example, by the seemingly endless chapter on the hen and the Goatwriter (which had no relevance to anything as far as I could see, and seemed to exist solely in order to increase the word count) that I nearly gave up on the whole book right there. Instead I gritted my teeth and went on to the end, but I had to force myself to do it.

Getting to the end was a relief.