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This love story is abruptly terminated by the Providers, who decree that Ben Ata must now abandon Al∙Ith and marry and civilize the hellcat Queen of Zone Five.
Grumpily and obediently, he does so.
Consistent as this development may be with Lessing's larger pattern, it does vitiate the final pages of her novel. What has happened earlier between her two principals seems too important to pass over so quickly. Lessing, 60, has written often about the struggles between men and women and the dimensions of sex and love, but never with more sweetness, compassion and wisdom. —Paul Gray