Yeah, I kind of obsessed about the dead world when I read it first. Do you remember that bit in The Cave Of Time where you come out of the cave to find that the sun's almost gone out?

And it fit in with my apocalypse nightmares as well.

I wasn't expecting to like the beavers, but I thought they were okay. Oh, who am I kidding, I had no sense of adult critical discernment at all in there.