Having read [book:Mirror Empire|22934035] and [book:Empire Ascendant|23920769] I was very happy to see a science-fiction release. At the beginning I was quite confused. Some of the details were not clear. After a moment, the confusion was replaced by intrigue: who are these people? where do they live? what the heck is going on? is this all just some analogous reference to life?
In other words, I really wanted to see what happens and see how the characters develop, and that is a great thing to get out of a book.