Kay has got a really good story here. The story is fairly-fast paced but covers the ground well. I didn't feel rushed from point to point. It was more a "here's something good, and then we're going to skip a bunch of boring nothingness, and here's the next good part". I pounded through the story over the course of a couple sittings and ended up wanting more.The combat action sequences were well done. I could picture most of them in my head without a problem. Not an easy thing to write well. The dialogue was completely believable and meshed well with the images going on in my mind's eye. Most importantly, the overall book sucked me in. I was completely immersed in the story and never came up against something that bumped me out of the "world".