This is a very imaginative story. On a distant world, mankind - now without any of the technology which first brought their human ancestors there - must wrestle for power, and even survival, with a predatory native species. The writing is inspired, the various plotlines intertwine marvelously, and the world-building is superb.
Mainly, the characters are interesting: the boatman whose realistic sculpture of his dream woman is replaced by an actual drowned and blighted woman, and then replaced again by the woman's living daughter; the queen's daughter who is sent to seek an empty continent her people might flee to; the slow-moving baby who is part alien (or something).
But other characters are mere stereotypes, of the exact type this author seems to employ all the time: the narrow-minded and very unintelligent prude; the equally unintelligent military general who fights for baseless causes; the sadistic misogynist; the powerful old geezers who gladly sacrifice the lives of others in exchange for a worthless immortality; the irresponsible creatures who disrespect their females and then outbreed thier food supply. And so on.
Mainly, the characters are interesting: the boatman whose realistic sculpture of his dream woman is replaced by an actual drowned and blighted woman, and then replaced again by the woman's living daughter; the queen's daughter who is sent to seek an empty continent her people might flee to; the slow-moving baby who is part alien (or something).
But other characters are mere stereotypes, of the exact type this author seems to employ all the time: the narrow-minded and very unintelligent prude; the equally unintelligent military general who fights for baseless causes; the sadistic misogynist; the powerful old geezers who gladly sacrifice the lives of others in exchange for a worthless immortality; the irresponsible creatures who disrespect their females and then outbreed thier food supply. And so on.
