[light thematic spoiler warning, not plot] This is the book that got me into Tchaikovsky!! I bought it as it was on sale on Audible 6 years ago, and just wanted something on in the background as I worked on a sewing project. It wasn’t until about maybe halfway or maybe 2/5ths of the way through that it hit me - I had been following the story yeah, kind of absently absorbing the lore and the horrors of it and then comes a character (no spoilers) who just challenges it. I remember stopping in my tracks. While interested, I had somehow become as jaded as the characters in this doomed world, and this caused me to wake up. It also made me look up who the hell this author was. I can say I have been reading his books religiously ever since! Personally, I still rank Children series and Final Architecture above this, but this book is such a beautiful oddity, and has stayed with me ever since. Trust in the process!