I came into this serious with a hopeful positive outlook. The description of the novel got me hooked and I was looking forward to reading it. Out of the other reviews I had read the book seemed worth the read. Sadly, I was very disappointed. Right away the book throws a bunch of in terms and I was very confused. The book did not spend enough time explaining the many terms in its universe. I could not keep track. To add to that the names of all the lingo, characters, and positions were very hard to pronounce and to even remember. The book jumped from place to place making it even harder to follow. I was hoping that the more that I read I would better understand the world that Sean McMullen had built. I was wrong the more I read the more perplexed it got. I was able to pick up few meanings here and there but would always have to go back to the description to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I had even checked to be positive that I had gotten the first book in the series to see if I could answer why I was so confused. There would be many times where I would have to take breaks reading only a few pages because of how complicated this read was. I had tried many times to look up forums in hopes that some fans could better explain what was going on in all of this chaos. Sadly the book was published in 1999 and the fanbase seems to be non-existant for the most part. I would not recommend this to a reader unless you are a heavy sci-fi fan and are willing to sit down for a good amount of time trying to read this complicated book.