I was really in the mood for a good space opera and that is exactly what this book delivered. Also the plot was kind of gonzo and things I expected to happen at the end of the book appeared around the middle third and it was just a fun ride, albeit one that was not entirely evenly paced.

One of the things I found super interesting about the background of the world is the invention of disorders - AAD (ambition and acquisitiveness disorder), which is only bad when humans have it and it really points out the way that cultures pathologize the things they don't like. It's an invitation to think about which of our current disorders are "inconvenience to those in charge" disorders even as the reality - both in the text and outside of it - is more complicated. You can see the way that Divya is thinking about societies and how they evolve and where we might go one day. There's so much to unpack in the background even as the story of humanity growing up, again, plays out in the foreground. I do really appreciate SF stories that are also about "if I could have any society, what might it be interesting to see"?