According to my records, I read this in 1996, a week after reading Cyteen. Just re-read it for the first time since, and wow, what an excellent book. I was particularly struck by the two introductory chapters, each essentially framing short stories for the novel, and how rich a backstory and society Cherryh paints with them, accomplishing more than many average SF books do. And then there's the main story, which I think I appreciated and followed much more this time around.

Back in 1996, I didn't like the aliens, especially as shown on the cover,
and it was all confusing. (It still is, but in a good way.) I had expected to sort of slog through this reread, on my way to the 10 (?!) sequels that have been written since. Instead, wow, I have nearly as much Cherryh as I've read before ahead of me.

(This wasn't as much a shock as rereading 40,000 and having it go from 2 to 4 stars, but I clearly missed a lot of Cherryh's depth the first time around.)