Descendant of War is Mass Effect: Renegade Interrupt - The Book. Commander Reeves is a guns-blazing human Space Navy officer, and also the distant descendant of characters from one of Ogden's other series. When he goes too far in pursuit of pirates, he's exiled to command of Conclave/The Abyss, a massive space station that servers as neutral territory for the six civilized races, and also a hive of scum and villainy for all their criminal elements. Along with his XO, Major Katee Kane, he has to bring justice to the void of space at the point of a blaster pistol and his plasma trench knife. The situation goes from bad (human extremists out for him personally, local criminals, idiot diplomats) to awful when mankind's ancient enemy returns through rifts in shadow space, threatening terrible revenge, which only Reeves can stop. See more in books 2-6!

So, I did not expect crackling writing or originality from the description or the price point, and even so, I feel let down. The sole bright spot is that the background details are not directly copied from the inspirations of Babylon 5 and Mass Effect. Enough is shuffled to make it not a carbon copy, though the aliens are still very much "planet of hats". But everything else is a study in artlessness. At least it's a quick read.