I loved this book. Absolutely loved it. A few months ago, io9 posted a link to the first chapter, which I devoured, and promptly discovered that none of my libraries (yes, I have four) actually HAD a copy I could take out.

So I bought the ebook as soon as I found it and finally got around to actually reading it.

McIntyre's grasp of animals, people, the relationships between them and healing is masterful, her characters come alive on the page and the world she has created makes me wish there were more. This book is everything I want in a science fiction novel - thoughtful, compelling, with excellent characters and a world that relies on the character's experience of it to convey both the familiarity and the alien-ness.

Also, McIntyre's prose is great; rather like Patricia McKillip, she's mastered the art of doing a lot with simplicity, though she never sacrifices clarify (which McKillip sometimes does).

What can I say, I loved this and will undoubtedly now meander off to hunt down some of her other work.