Yeah; Bear reminds me a little of Stephen King in that regard. He's a really brilliant writer in many ways (a lot more so than he's generally given credit for), but I often feel that the reason why so many of his books are merely so-so, rather than great, is because they need to have a few chapters' worth of words whacked out of them -- they tend to suffer from major editing fail. Bear's books are kind of the same -- she has fantastic and original ideas, but I feel as if her books tend to end up a sprawling sea of ideas that don't quite mesh, where they could be completely brilliant if they were more tightly focused. Most of her books, including this one, feel to me as if they need to be 2 or 3 different books; the elements don't quite mesh well enough to form a fully cohesive whole in just 400 or so pages.