After not getting on too well with Wayfarers (I liked it, but too fluffy, no desire to go back), this book worked much better for me. Some of that is "right place, right time", of course, but definitely more my thing than Wayfarers. Discounting the emotional bits, I do think the book could stand to be built better – the narration is occasionally very plain and sometimes approaching shoddy. But hey, the ideas and feelings make it easy to gloss over that and enjoy it regardless. (Also, I cannot read this kind of fiction without thinking of how Delany would dissect it.) This book is part of the 2022 Backlog Incident.