God this was a long one.
I've had this book for about two years now and have started reading it probably 4 or 5 times already. The problem is the book is rather large, and the beginning of the book is just boring. You are thrown into a complex world with some cursory explanations and little back story (despite having read the prequel DownBelow Station) and expected to jump into these intricate details and characters very quickly. However, once I finally sucked it up and got past the first 100 pages, I was completely hooked.
This book provides a universe that is incredibly complex yet well defined and not difficult to understand, and as the cover says, is reminiscent in its scope to that of Dune. The characters are so deep I often found myself surprised by how Cherryh seemed to let the characters make their own decisions, rather than having them fall into the boundaries she had created in what she had shared with the reader. The characters themselves were also very easy to identify with and understand as she gave the reader real insight into many of the primary characters' innermost thoughts and motivations. The emotions felt were also very palpable. You can almost touch the paranoia felt by both Grant and Justin throughout the novel.
This book also somewhat provided some in-depth looks into what drives human behavior. Much of the fictitious research in this book was dealing with value sets and the actions derived through them. If applied in someway to ourselves, you can really get some insights into what drives our behavior. It also delved heavily into our influence over others and how we deliver our words and body language and what can be shown through any of this. In reading the novel, one constantly had to pay attention to the language used between characters in the dialogue to draw out the true meanings of what was being said.
In summary, once you get over the initial hump, this book really does suck you in, but is also quite a time investment due to its length; therefore, I would only suggest it if you have quite a bit of time to devote to it.
Overall: 8.5/10
