Tower of Mud and Straw is a lyrical fantasy novel about a disgraced politician overseeing a construction megaproject. Shea Ashcroft is one of the Queen's ministers, who refused to use violence against the mob. His new assignment is out on the frontier, where a 1000 foot air-defense tower is being built. He arrives to find a paranoid and insular group of experts around the local Duke, and that exotic and dangerous antigravity magitech that he has a family history with is being used to build the power. Events move like an avalanche towards the only possible conclusion.

Tower is built around moments of lyric beauty, self-consciously artistic descriptions of the play of light or stormclouds, and then secondly Shea's unravelling psychology and personal neurosis. The plot and other characters are dreamlike at best. But as a novella, this book doesn't wear out its welcome, and the literary qualities are worth savoring.