Pretty good book. Planning on reading the next in the series at some point.

One of the things I liked was the variety of interests/skill sets he has outside of the fact that he's a ex-imperial guard/warrior/space pilot. Like he designed/built the ship, though he had help from a renowned ship builder, his little hidden cache of rare/extinct plants used for healing purposes, him writing subroutines to help his arts become better people etc.

At this point in the story line I'm not sure we've seen anything to really set the main bad guy apart from any main bad guy in any story. His menagarie of useful people, such as his two assassins, seems to be the closest. Is that enough to counter Garrand/Tchelakov? We'll see how much growth he gets in the later books, right now Garrand is interesting enough that it's not too much of a problem. More of an observation I guess.

—Modrukinstealer from Good reads