Brian Aldiss' highly inventive space opera is a mind-expanding range of songs and science that takes us, twisting and turning, through a cornucopia of intergalactic merriment and melodrama. Eccentric characters burst into full-throated song with each meandering plot.

I found this book to be really poor and was a "Did not complete". Overwhelming in the attempt to make the world so different it seemed to be an exercise in "how to alienate your reader"

Aldiss did not present the reader with anything they can grasp hold to in order to follow the narrative - in fact I'm still not entirely sure what the narrative was supposed to be. Few words seemed to be proper non-made-up word in English.

Not worth my time in continuing, so I abandoned quite early on ( )