But it seemed like the events of this novel are merely a coda to whatever happened in the previous book. It's a sequel to 'Moon-Flash' - which I haven't read, so that could be the problem. I love Patricia McKillip's writing, however, I regretfully have to admit that I was not very impressed by this book. She was Kyreol of the Dome, slender and tall in a silver flightsuit, with the reflection of the Face in her skin and the shadow of its secrets in her eyes. The childwoman Kyreol, betrothed and swarming like a beehive with questions, had drawn him past the edge of the ancient Riverworld into the future. He touched her cheek, thinking, at its sunlight darkness, of the black, immense slab of rock that had shrugged its way out of the earth to become, eons later, the northern boundary of the Riverworld. The sun caught in her eyes she laughed, suddenly very close to him, though he couldn’t remember which of them had moved. “With an arrow?” He was smiling, remembering then the long hours they had spent together before he had gone upriver. You could fall out of a tree you could eat a bad musk-berry you could shoot yourself by accident-” “What could happen to me in the Riverworld?” I liked how it followed on from Moon-flash, particularly the idea that the Riverworld has to be protected from outside influence, and the emotional intensity Kyreol and Terje bring to their various challenges.

This is a quiet, poignant story about leaving home and returning again, and about embracing change. And Kyreol’s ship crashes down on a moon. Neither of these missions go according to plan. Both Kyreol and Terje are heading off on missions: Kyreol to visit another planet for the first time, Terje to return to the Riverworld to observe but not interact. The Moon and the Face is set four years after Moon-flash.

Moon-Flash by Patricia A. McKillip