This book is incredible. Magic and science combine here like peanut butter and chocolate. There is a tremendous amount of technique and philosophy to unpack from this story. Anders takes a number of the tropes from science fiction and fantasy, and then subverts them by resolving them in unexpected manners. The chosen one mixes with doomsday weapons and magical realism delightfully. The marriage and conflict of sci-fi and fantasy is handled very well through both the two protagonists and the circles they run in separately as adults. Everyone is working for what they feel are the best interests of the world, but they come at it with incomplete information and their own biases, which, unsurprisingly, leads to conflict. The mistrust of each side for the other due to misunderstanding and lack of knowledge is very real and very human. 
 The brokenness and realness of humanity is a recurrent theme in this book. Laurence and Patricia are both messy, broken people who still aspire to do the best at what they feel called to. The reader sees this to a lesser extent in the supporting cast and even in the resolution of the story. This resolution is satisfying in that Anders meets expectations she sets early in the book, and she twists those expectations to new combinations and occurrences.