I did end up finishing this yesterday, thanks to a long trip to Melbourne. It was excellent. A bit odd, in that there were lots of interesting things – ideas – that weren’t fully explained, ideas that were integral to the world. I think this is a hard thing for lots of authors to find the balance of: you don’t want it to sound like a children’s story, where everything is laid out for you, but still you need to make it transparent for the reader. I want to know more about the Morah! I’m hoping that the sequel, Slaves to the Master, explains this more fully.

This was a good book. I liked it. I may have to revise my opinion about it being less sophisticated than Nix, but I am not entirely sure yet. I think the fact that there are still some things that I don’t fully understand lowers it a bit.

The ma gave me a book on how to solve cryptic crosswords, something we every now and then have a go at. It’s got about 20 or so pages on the different sorts of clues you come across, and the rest is actual crosswords. I have read through the stuff about the the clues, and had a go at a couple… it’s still pretty hard. I don’t think I’ve really got the brain for it yet.