My first Dan Simmons- Really good story however it could have been about 100-200 pages shorter. The repeated telling of who was dead and who wasnt dead from each ship could have been scrapped and their actual traveling routes and details could have been clarified better, thus shortened. Their were some other redudancies throughout the book that just should have been edited and scrapped but overall it was a great story. Im looking forward to my next Simmons book...