Uncharacteristically for Williams, the first two parts (130-ish pages) of this were pretty uneventful. It was an awful lot of going back and forth without much happening - action, plot, or character development wise. Some of it was necessary for context, but the pinballing around the same locations went on for a bit too long. We definitely could have been given the context in more varied ways. 

However, the rest of it was absolutely marvellous. Seeing the earlier days of Osten Ard was great and learning more of the history of the Tinukeda’ya was really interesting - especially them being given leadership of 3 of the 9 original settlements. 

I really need more Tinukeda’ya history in general, I’m so bloody riveted by it. And Williams gave such a powerful portrayal of an indentured community losing their identity and it being subsumed by their 'betters'. 

I really want a Silmarillion-esque prequel from the very early days. The Gardenborn story is such a play on 'what would happen if the LotR elves were completely cut off from Elvenhome.