For a DSA novel this book was actually quite good. I really liked the noir-esque tone and the unsympathetic characters. Extremely annoying though were the constant allusions to the starfall. It almost seems like somebody from the editorial staff told Masberg "Look, we have this great metaplot-thingy: The stars are falling from the sky... and, er... everything is going to change! To be honest we have no idea yet regarding the why and what, therefore every NSC has to wonder permanently what's going on. Please take note of this for your novel."

Normally I wouldn't care about that but as this book represents the end of an era as the final part of the grand narrative which once began with the first preludes to the G7 more than 25 years ago (and furthermore should have been in fact the last DSA 4.1 adventure before Ulisses scrapped it!) it is just bitter to see it desecrated by the bleak "modernization" which is DSA 5 and the respective metaplot.

Therefore: 4 stars for a very solid novel which I can highly recommend to everybody interested in The Dark Eye and -1 star for the DSA5-defilation. ( )