Having loved Winter's Orbit after devouring it within a day, I was very excited to read this book! This, of course, means that I delayed reading it until a year after its release date. 

There is a different tone to this novel compared to Winter's Orbit -- this is because they aren't sequels to each other but just take place in the same universe. There is much more of an anti-military tone here and there is a more magic-adjacent world here. 

The world building was extensive and immersive, I throughly enjoyed it. Despite the fact that it's all rather complex, you do not feel out of your depth for more than a few pages. The architect/reader system was fascinating and intricately constructed. 

The characters were well developed and flawed and it was easy to get invested in them as individuals and as a pair. Romance wise, Maxwell is at the top of their game as usual. I was, of course, emotionally destroyed.

This hasn't changed since the previous book but I just wanted to again emphasise how wonderful it is to read a book with a queer-normative world. The pin convention to emphasise pronouns, as well as the gender neutral use of Sir and such is just very welcoming to queer people so. I just wanted to comment on that again. 

Overall, a wonderful space opera-type novel! Honestly, I don't know how to categorise it as it's a genre hybrid but just trust me, it's great. Do check the trigger warnings though.