As a long time webber fan to the point of buying his omnibuses (stars at war, empire from the ashes, in fury born) as well as singles, this has been the most painful of his books to read (worse than the excalibur alternative which was terrible). It reads like a prose heavy version of John Ringo's council wars. Good concept, magic versus technolgy but not really fleshed out and the introduction of too many (at this point) extraneous characters who do nothing but talk about their motivations makes this a tedious read. I ended up skipping chapters just to follow the characters I liked. Needs severe editorial help (not unlike the wheel of time books that rambled on...)