 In all the decades that I've been reading science fiction, this is the first time I've read CJ Cherry. This book is the most information-dense book I believe I have ever read. Every single sentence contains information that the reader needs. You cannot skim pages, you cannot skim paragraphs. Everything is vital. I've never seen anything quite like this before. There are so many characters from so many families and so many different political and military factions that I just could not keep straight who was who and who was doing what. By the time I got 80 or 85% through the book, I was tired of it, but I was determined to finish it for the review. But once I got a little bit further assay to 90%, I realized that I just didn't care.