As I started reading this book, I took many parallels to Star Wars and how the early part of that series started (from book 4 I mean). Here we have a boat captain trying to stay afloat, interesting arts (Artificial sentient and non sentient beings) a damsel in distress (well, she is one tough damsel...) with a mysterious cargo that needs to be picked up.

You get the same dashes of humor but at least Garrand, the captain, is a bit better prepared for what he runs into, if still as baffled as Han Solo ever was with Princess Lea.

So we have:

The Inner Core (Imperials)
The Shell (a vast space area of various systems of governments and players trying to consolidate power)
The Mysterious cargo
Advance technology
some nicely played out personal and ship to ship battles

and you wanting more at the end of the first book. Hopefully the 2nd book picks right up on the same fast pace.

—Ram-z from Amazon