When it comes to writing fiction, Andrew Hook is a sneaky bastard. He takes his reader gently by the hand, and leads them down a path until they're in a pleasant, lawned area with a bench. He sits them down, hands them a nice cup of tea, has a quiet conversation about various things that don't seem particularly connected to each other, and then asks permission to place a blindfold over the reader's eyes. This odd request granted, he does so. At which point one realises that what he actually did was REMOVE a blindfold, becuase everything that you saw until then was fiction, and one is actually sitting with cup of exceedingly fine coffee in the hand, and are surrounded by wonderful flora and fauna in the middle of a country field somewhere in the middle of the New Hebrides. This sudden change of awareness is surprising, but not unpleasant.

That's what his writing is like. Full of surprises, always rewarding, always exceedingly seamless in its use of technique.

He's good; so very, VERY good.