Enjoyable read, but hopelessly overlong I think. It does not need the end material (all the glossaries and character lists and so on) and it certainly does not need the annoying multiple introductions, done in even more annoying different fonts. None of these added anything.

What really made it feel overlong, though, was the point where it became really, blindingly obvious who the Snake was - hundreds of pages before Beka or her Dogs figured it out. These people are supposed to be clever. Yes, trick them, have them misdirected, but if you drag out their realisations too long, they come across as being stupider with every passing page. There were a lot of pages, is what I'm saying. I think my favourite characters were Beka and Goodwin, and I don't like to think of them as thick, but damn did Pierce do her best at presenting them that way. At length.

What I did like was the world-building and the characters and the community of people that Beka built around her. And the cat; he was great.