I struggle with the science, the very technical parts, and find those extremely hard to read. Despite Weber's attempt at writing women as strong, independent, and not 2D he still ends up being slightly misogynistic. 

Pages 310-318 were the worst pages I have read in a long time, not just the description of violence but the retelling of the horrible rape and beating the female officers endured at the hands of the Masadans. As a survivor of rape, and assault I am very careful about reading those kind of scenes but my partner didn't warn me this time and I had a visceral reaction.

 
Like the first book of the series: it overall was decent, but probably not something I would read again.