I'd call this maybe 2.5 stars.

Oh boy this book did not work for me. I really dug the first book in the series, I found the second disappointing (I think the change in translator was not helpful), and this third book we're back to the original translator and I was left cold for almost the entire book. It's got some great hard scifi ideas and scale that I've never thought of before - but especially in the last third of the book I was starting to skim paragraphs of descriptions that I wasn't interested in; I didn't have the characters to follow to keep me engaged maybe? It seemed like the author wanted to cram in so many different times and locations and situations that we were jerked around from one to another in rapid succession -- we'd be approaching a critical juncture and then, No, nevermind, critical juncture averted, we're on to another critical juncture, and so on.

In my heart I'm a bitter-ender with books and especially series, but I was starting to want to bail on this book about half way through and I'd probably have been happier for having done so.