3.5 stars. Doesn’t carry the same heft or majesty that the original Imperial Radch trilogy does, but it’s still an interesting (yet smaller) tale set in the same universe. I might have to read it again because I feel like I missed some of the nuances that Leckie was trying to convey. As a storyteller, she is a consummate shower, not a teller. So you simply can’t blink while you’re reading her work or you will fail to get points that she’s conveying in the narrative. I do love that she maintains her thematic focus on politics and culture rather than relying on the clichéd action set pieces that you find sometimes in other sci-fi literature.