When I first picked this up, I was perplexed. The cover copy makes it sound like the sort of story you'd find buried deep in the fiction section of DeviantArt's anthro community. A flying, shapeshifting orphan who doesn't know his own species? Really?

But a disproportionately large number of authors and reviewers who have my respect (Catherynne M. Valente, N.K. Jemison, Foz Meadows, C.J. Cherryh) were saying excellent things about it, so I gave it a go.

Pretty quickly I was sucked right in, and wasn't at first able to articulate just why. The world building is excellent, with care and thought given to the differences between different intelligent species both biologically and culturally. The characters are given depth and realistic strengths and weaknesses based on their personalities, histories, and places in their culture's hierarchy. The relationships even have nuance and make sense!

It's a little like the movie Avatar, but if James Cameron gave even one damn about decent plot construction and character building. Oh, and no humans.

I'm pretty put out that my library doesn't have the sequel. The first ends rather abruptly, and I'm itching to get on to the next. Going on my to-buy list...