Dave Hardy of SF Crowsnest noted "In essence, this is a quest. Not a magical one, of course, but, for most of the book, this is about the search for Dr. Gagarian’s head. It is also a good example of modern space opera."^[2]

Greg L. Johnson of SF Site wrote "That's plenty of story for any novel, and Paul McAuley places it in a setting that is both decaying, and, from our perspective, full of wonders. For the characters, life in the solar system is akin to Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, with pockets of civilization and relative prosperity separated by lengthy and dangerous travel. It's a far cry from the beginnings of a solar system wide civilization depicted in The Quiet War and Gardens of the Sun, and from the cultural struggles going on in distant Fomalhaut in In The Mouth of the Whale, yet McAuley provides enough of an historical background to tie them all together. The life of genetic engineer Sri Hong-Owen is one of the connecting threads in the novels and, in a way, influences every character in Evening's Empires, though it is separated from the other novels by vast distances in time and space".^[3]