I read the first two pages and thought, oh dear, Mary Renault. Not that I have anything against Mary Renault, who was very good in her way, but she was not Ursula Le Guin. At the end of the second page, everything changed, and it became altogether more complex, a novel about creation, writing, the life of invented characters. Ursula Le Guin has always been able to tell a good story, whatever else she may have been trying to do, and although she has "lost" one or two of the good bits from Virgil, she continues to show command over the balance of pace, pause and character.