This wasn't particularly good but I must remember Delany wrote it when he was a teenager. I didn't write any novels when I was a teenager. So, there's that much slack I can give him. 

That said, there are some problems. First, the characters' voices are inconsistent. In the beginning, many spoke With a distinctly salty pirate inflection. The voices changed for most characters over the course of the story and tended to end in a very 1950s pulp style. One character even says things like, "gee" and "gosh." It is jarring.

Can we talk about the description of the adolescent girl's stage of physical development? This was completely unnecessary and I must say it sort of took me out of the story for a moment. Bad Delany. No biscuit.

Again, I have to temper my expectations knowing the author's age at the time of publication. But this is apparently a celebrated work so I feel justified in criticism. The prose is adorned throughout with literary chrome which smacks of some heavy sessions with a thesaurus. It felt almost like a contestant on a cooking show tossing gold leaf on their offering in an attempt to elevate it. But this doesn't work if the base is undercooked. Also, gold leaf on oatmeal is a waste.

Speaking of oatmeal, the story moves very slowly. Part of this is due to some half realized imagery needing several re-reads before moving on. Some of it is because the characters are not particularly interesting. Rounding out the trio is the exposition. Several scenes consist of a group of suspicious, religious people in an Elizabethan-type era discussing the intricacies of logic.

In all, I found the story disappointing.