In this future, as presented to us by Kevin J. Anderson, mankind has moved amongst the stars. We've also encountered and allied ourselves with an very human-like (at least in appearance) alien race known as the Ildiran Empire.

From the first encounter with the Idirans, who rescued the generation starships sent out from Earth at sub-light speeds, mankind has only known the one other sentient life form living in the galaxy.

This was not always the case, however, as ruins of a fallen civilisation (the Klikiss) have been discovered on countless planets throughout the galaxy, with no clue as to their extinction being apparent. The only survivors are large black insect-like robots that unfortunately seem to have had their memories wiped clean.

Two archaeologists decipher Klikiss writings and figure out the workings of one of the Klikiss's machines, capable of igniting a gas giant into a new star giving light and heat to the satellites - melting their ice and converting them into planets ready for colonisation. This is simply too irresistable for a mankind eager to spread throughout the galaxy and constantly searching for new worlds to inhabit.

But when soon after a mysterious new race are encountered, one who's first act is destructive in the extreme, mankind and the Ildiran Empire must prepare themselves for what seems to be an inevitable conflict.

This book is epic in scope. In its seven hundred and four pages we roam all over the galaxy. It is a immense collage, being told from many different aspects, form many different viewpoints, each one giving an individual outlook on events transpiring on a galactic stage.

The human Hanseatic League is a benign despotic regime. At its head is a King, although this king is a powerless puppet who only says what he is told by the Chairman of the League. This book treads similar areas to much of Robert Heinlein's work, from the non-democratic power structure, the high militaristic content, and the general feeling of superiority of mankind over the other races.

This superiority factor is handled well as it adds to the imagined feelings of confusion and frustration being felt by the players in the tale, that they had considered themselves at the top of the tree and initial struggle to find a way to react.

The comparison to Heinlein's work runs deeper than this though. This feels like the kind of book Heinlein might be writing were he alive and writing at his peak today. If you think this is high praise to a great extent the book deserves it - this galaxy is richly detailed and wonderfully imagined.

We have a gypsy-like loose grouping of families called the Roamers, who are outside the Hanseatic League and work on Ekti-harvesting (Ekti being the stardrive fuel in this book, and is derived from processing the hydrogen in the atmospheres of gas giants).

We have the Green Priests of Theroc. Theroc is one of the planets colonised by mankind. When people first settled there it was discovered that the globe covering forest was a telepathic hive mind organism. Any tree, part of the WorldForest has immediate access to the knowledge and wisdom of the whole mind, and can instantaneously communicate with any other part of the WorldForest or with any priest attuned to the trees. A wonderfully ingenious solution to the problem sf writers face with interstellar communication.

There are the Idirans, mankind centuries long allies in the galaxy, a race so similar in appearance to humankind that their differences are all the more effective.

This takes some reading. 660 plus pages in 115 chapters is a lot, especially as this is but book one of a series. The short chapters are a great boon as well as an initial hurdle for the reader to overcome. This is a book that it is necessary to settle down and read a good number of the chapters in one sitting to get a feel for this universe, as the short chapters do initially seem a little choppy in style. I found that I no sooner got a slight grasp on who a character was than I'd moved onto the next one.

This is a very small criticism though, as it is written well enough that I quickly enough got into the flow and found the style to be highly beneficial in later section, preventing the book from stagnating - a fear I did have when first picking such a large book up.

This is top notch space opera sf. With this novel Kevin J. Anderson may be staking his claim to join the likes of Robert Heinlein and E.E. 'Doc' Smith in the annals of sf, and he's doing a darn good job at doing so.

Not bad for a guy I only knew from media tie-in novels prior to my reading this. If you are a little put off reading this thinking he's an X-Files writer, or fell any unease regarding the Dune tie-ins would have you overlooking this book - GET OVER IT! This is good stuff!