Yeah, I really enjoyed the back half of the book and especially loved the whole thing with Chekhov's half-built spaceship and their solution for that (CJC is so good at coming up with cool scifi set-pieces that really utilize the outer-space setting). But it's not one that has stuck with me in any particular way - I'm now finding that as time goes by since I read the book, it hasn't really left me with a strong impression one way or another. I think it didn't quite grab as hard as her books normally do because it didn't really have that "lost misfits finding each other" thing that most of her books do, since all the main characters already have strong relationships with their families; none of them are lonely outsiders finding home, but instead they already have home, and it's a very different feeling.

I'm still glad she's writing in this universe again. I think she's contracted for 3(?) Alliance-Union novels. The cliffhanger ending makes me think the next one will probably pick up with the same group of characters, but I'm hoping there's enough of a time-jump that things will shuffle a bit and we'll get a different window on these events with a slightly different set of protagonists.