There is also an evil wizard and a bunch of very Leiberian gods, none of whom I am particularly convinced by. Unfortunately the wizard sort of takes over the plot, and not in a good way. It's still a fun book, and I am thoroughly charmed by a (good) wizard whose first reaction to any problem is to invent, but I feel like each of these books is a mix of story and random crap the author thought would be cool to throw in. I'd love it if the random crap seemed to be going anywhere, arc-wise.
Footnote: Okay, I get it that the cosmology is not remotely Copernican or even Aristotelian. I'm still not comfortable with the sun rising in the west, not unless we get a non-solar account of what "west" means.