This was only okay in part because after reading the Well At The World's End I had extraordinarily high expectations. This book has lovely, lyrical prose but the story seemed confused and I object to two big things. Thing 1: the female characters had no names, only archetype appellations like The Lady and the Maid. Thing 2: the female characters did all the big work of the story and plot while the protagonist, Walter, seemingly gets all the benefit and never bothers to learn anyone's name. Grrrr…. I object.