This is a beautifully written, evocative, highly intelligent novella about artificial intelligence and virtual realities. A lot of it takes place in a dream space, which is beautifully rendered. For me, and this is an ideosyncratic reaction, the language occasionally bordered on too ornate. There are people for whom language can hardly be too ornate, and those people are going to adore this. But for me, there's a point somewhere along the line to rococo where the ornamentation gets to be too much for me and I start to feel distracted rather than charmed. This walked very close to that point a couple of times.
But that's a caveat and a quibble. Its still a lovely, intricate, heartfelt jewelbox of a story.
