This is possibly my favorite entry in the Wayfarers series. Is that controversial? Let me know. Every book in the series has been "slow," but rather than a fault of the story; it's an asset and especially so in this entry. Perhaps it's because the world of the past two years (if not longer) has felt like it's hurtling at break-neck speed into infinite chaos, but the calm non-intrusive writing and narrative aesthetic of this book really struck me in the pleasure parts of the brain. This book is about nothing. We're just experiencing a particular moment of time at what's functionally an interstellar truck stop on a planet of no concern. It may sound strange to describe a book I really enjoyed as being about nothing, but this book—this whole series—is different from a lot of science fiction; there's no grand war where our title hero will lead the obviously good team into battle. Well...there is war and struggle in the world this series is set in, but the book is not about those things in this world. There's no denying Chambers has done a phenomenal job building deep, rich, and interesting lore to her world, but rather than write a textbook about her universe; we instead learn about the world through her characters. A common piece of advice given to fledgling DMs/GMs of role-playing games is to not over-provide and over-prepare information for your players, allow the players room to interact and explore on their own. It feels as though Chambers has taken some form of that advice and applied it to her novel writing.