False Dawn was expanded from a short story by the same name (in Strange Bedfellows). John Clute, writing in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, was very critical of Yarbro's decision to expand this story into a novel. In the short story, he noted, the rape of Thea and the rape of the land "model each other effectively," but the effect is lost when the novel drags out for many more pages, episodic in nature and "shambling."