The Vanished Birds

Four stars for the prose, two for the plot. It's very well written, but parts of the book appear to be aiming for magical realism which doesn't gel with the SF element and makes what should be an emotional climax kind of silly. Also, and this might just be because it's a picaresque, I definitely got the vibe that some of the episodes here were existing short stories or other pieces that had been given bit of a rerub to work them into the novel. A few reviews have mentioned Ursula LeGuin, and I have to say that the last part certainly put me in mind of The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. It's not as good as that, of course, but very little is. Overall, flawed but promising.