It’s the end of a long religious war, but “by the book” female soldier Scur has been captured and is being tortured by the “archenemy” mentioned on the book's cover - presumably he didn't "get the memo" that there's been a ceasefire... She loses consciousness but, for a moment, things are looking up as she awakens in a comfortable pod. However, when she emerges from the pod, she is on a ship full of soldiers from both sides, a microcosm of the conflict that Scur hoped she had put behind her. The rest of the book is her taking a leadership role in what comes next.This is a quick read, 2-3 hours to get through the 182 pages of narrative. That tells you two things. First, Reynolds is a storyteller par excellence. He keeps the reader glued by setting up multiple mysteries and levels of mystery. Why am I (Scur) here? What has gone wrong with the ship? Where is the ship? As each question is answered it often leads to another mystery that keeps the pages turning. The second thing it tells you is what loses it the star - at $10-15 for a couple of hours read, this is an expensive entertainment.Reynolds completists (by definition) will want this. Fans of his hard SF who may not have appreciated the utopian aspects of the Poseidon's Children (PC) series will probably want it, and lovers of his more PC (ha ha) work, less so. Reynolds relaxes his strict causality/lightspeed barrier rules that so impressed many reviewers of House of Suns, but the relaxation doesn’t affect the main plot extensively and the book still has more of a hard SF flavor. However, readers looking for a first foray into Reynolds would do better to buy House of Suns. Easily his best work, 3 times as much material, and for about half the money.