In one sense, this is *too much* a love letter to Minneapolis (of the late 80s, at that). For me, who am unfamiliar with the city, the level of detail was annoying. But the fate of the city is the reason for the conflict between the fey. Once I got beyond the city-love, the characters and the story blossomed and captivated me ( )

This is one of the foundational books of urban fantasy, and it's written in sort of the same style that Charles de Lint uses in his Newford series -- it's quieter, more literary, more thoughtful (even as it jams its way through the eyes of a rock band) than the cliched urban fantasy with the exhausted, broke noir private eye we're accustomed to. I have to admit I spent a great deal of time copying quotes from this to various friends; I just loved the writing. Very cool. Glad I finally got around to reading this. :) ( )

Bull's book is great because she uses the Faerie, like Shakespeare before her, for an extended metaphor on art and imagination. Lesser authors get snagged on the boring surface details of the genre -- inscrutable Court politics and elvish surprise at the high price of eggs -- but Bull never gets distracted from the human element. Eddi's music is fundamentally more interesting than the brownie cleaning her kitchen, and Bull keeps these elements in proper proportion.

It's not a perfect book. It tends to dramatically compress long stretches of time, which distorts the way certain characters are growing and changing. In particular, the phouka -- Eddi's crafty dog/man bodyguard -- goes from seeing Eddi as a convenient tool to "My God! HU-MANS HAVE FEELINGS TOO!" In about thirty pages. His new-found empathy comes off as a little abrupt.

On the other hand, it's hard for me to be harsh on the phouka as the phouka is such a brilliant character. The phouka refers to Eddi as his "primrose." The phouka makes puns. The phouka is the best character in the book. To be honest, the phouka was the source of my squealing. My inner eight-year-old loved the phouka and his verbosely uncomfortable relationship with Eddi. I liked the psychological insights of the text, but my inner eight-year-old gives the phouka two thumbs up. And a hug. ( )

I enjoyed the concept, loved some of the descriptive bits. ( )

I'd never heard of this book until last week and, lo, the bookstore had a ton of copies of this newer edition sitting everywhere, like they got overstocked and where trying to get rid of it. It's hard for me to believe that such an incredible novel that is so relevant to my interests, and is nearly as old as I am, could have gone so unknown to me until mere chance intervened.

This book is a wonderful urban fantasy that can be even more appreciated by music lovers. It's multi-leveled and has great dialogue and character interactions that have you entranced from cover to cover. One reading has set it in my favourites pile.

It was originally published for teens but I feel it's more adult, not in context but in writing. It's very mature and just very well written. This is not for typical lovers of the S. Meyer brand of romance fantasy but a more developed reader. ( )