Stayed up half the night reading this, so I'm glad it gets the full five stars. No idea why I never finished it the first time I got a hold of it, but I'm guessing it was all those tedious dude wizard lineages in the first few pages (and by that I mean one wizard spawning another in mythically solipsistic fashion with a dubiously consenting woman as the vehicle). Once you get past that necessary bit of scene setting, it's magical, complex, heartbreaking.