<David Attenborough> “And here, in the wild, a rare picture of a new novel freshly released onto the shelves. These first few days can be a difficult time for a novel so recently separated from its author. Sometimes, unfamiliar with their proper place on the shelves, they can be seen to seek out company and companionship from others of their kind, as we see here. Moving in to another’s territory like this can be dangerous, as once out on the shelves, competition for readers can be intense.” </David Attenborough>

It’s become clear over the last few weeks that critical opinion on The Adamantine Palace is split cleanly down the middle between those who don’t mind that the background setting is pretty skeletal and those who think it would be better if it wasn’t. Deathray falls in the latter camp with: “…and when have as potentially a fascinating one [world] as this, we’d like to know how it works.” OK Deathray and the rest of you, if you’ll put up with me kicking down the door and being all sturm und drang in book one, I’ll see if I can show you a little more of my world in books two and three. They do also observe that: “The story runs like a whippet.” Which is nice. Something on which we can all agree. As long as we all understand that it’s a really fast whippet we’re talking about. With a rocket up its…

Moving swiftly on, there’s finally someone at Strange Horizons who really, really doesn’t get on with The Adamantine Palace, concluding that: “The dragonocalypse will be happening without me.” That’s how it goes. One week you’re Oscar Wilde, the next you’re as shallow and vapid as an oil slick. Well, sorry, Strange Horizons, but in your case I don’t think you’ve got much to look forward to. I’m afraid it’s very possible that Zafir might say the ‘F-word’ for a second time, and it’s quite likely that Jehal won’t have undergone some monastic transformation and given up sex just yet. And it’s not dragonocalypse, it’s drapocalypse.

Although you might be right that one’s coming…