Stay with it, and you may glean the Discworld-to-come! Don’t, and you either stopped reading or else you read a fairly straightforward science fiction tale with a gentle lean-in to science fantasy. A surprisingly (if you’ve never read Pratchett!) decently-written-by-male-author female protagonist, a couple of fun and coherently-written alien co-stars, a bit of a caper that for some reason discards the fun and adventure about midway through and gets a bit heavy on telling its allegories rather than showing (again, this is definitely a proto-Discworld novel), Strata is a largely forgettable book, if fun, by an unforgettable writer whose works-to-come will never leave your brain or heart. Fans of no-footnotes are welcome here. (Why ye exist, tell us not.)