Peirce captures the moods (though without matching the subtlety of the master), but most disturbingly, his hero proves to be less sympathetic than Vance's harshest protagonists. Kerryl Ryson's family calamity is largely his own fault. There is not enough to admire in him, and his lapses into amorality leave a very bitter aftertaste."
Its theme is that of many books by Vance: retribution by the grown-up protagonist for injustices done to him and his family in his youth. Locus said of the first edition: "Some writers have tried to adapt the Vancian style in tribute or pastiche. Hayford Peirce's The Thirteenth Majestral is a very faithful effort, chock-a-block with poignant nomenclature, strange lands, and dinosaurs (cf The Dragon Masters), and featuring the requisite grim young hero out for revenge.