On the Steel Breeze

Reynolds circles the edges of complicated topics like identity, entitlement, and legitmacy of political power with this semi-hard SF story of humanities first interstellar foray. His most interesting characters and scenes revolve around using moral choices as Turing tests. He engages us with a small cast of complicated and ambiguous characters supported by a broad but mostly thin supporting cast. The middle parts of the book are the best, with well-crafted world-building occuring as part of the action and character development. The structure helps instill a sense of the time involved in sub-light interplanetary travel, but like the ballistic impactors that shift events, much of the conclusion of the book appears to be moving to pretty predictable conclusions. I will probably read the other two books in the series, eventually.