I've long considered Diane Duane to be one of the very best contemporary fantasy authors: her Tales of the Five series, certainly, has inspired me and impacted my life as no other single or series of fantasy books. I've never before been disappointed in the least by any of her work. So it was a complete shock to find Stealing the Elf-King's Roses so weak and disappointing.

There are some things here that are good, especially the premise of the interlinked worlds and the impact they have upon one another, but I found the character development to be lacking, the conclusion to be somehow unsatisfying, and some seemingly internally self-contradictions to be jarring.

Sadly, this is the first Duane book I've felt at all willing to part with, and that I won't be reading again and again. All of that said, though, even a mediocre book by Duane is as good as much of the other fantasy and science-fiction available on the market.