[1]" The Independent wrote "Contrived, often describing an idealised world but with luminous moments quite outside the normal run of contemporary fiction, this is a serious children's book for adult readers, and none the worse for that.

The stranger Palinor, a modern thinker from a distant and advanced society named Aclar, is cast ashore on the beach of a medieval culture where faith is all.

Paton Walsh was careful to avoid making Severo a mere caricature; he is for his time an educated and thoughtful man whose intellectual horizons are restricted by his medieval faith.

Much of the dialog the author uses in this section, and the details of the torture itself, were taken verbatim from the records of the Spanish Inquisition, who carefully wrote down their activities because they genuinely felt they were doing the work of their god by inflicting unimaginable agonies on their captives.

Severo's experiment ultimately leads not only to the death or disillusionment of individual characters but also to the implied destruction of their generally well-intentioned society; by an avenging fleet from Aclar sighted by Amara as she flees back to the wilderness.