More of Leckie's wonderful Cherryh-meets-Banks space opera, with the drama moved to a station cut off from the rest of the Empire, but possibly about to become central to the growing conflict. Breq is now Fleet Captain, though this is but a poor echo of her former self. She encounters complication after complication, some caused by the civil war, some by old class and power structures and attendant abuses and transgressions and one by her effort to make some sort of gesture to the sister of the Lieutenant she loved and murdered. Corruption and aristocratic entitlement, hints of dangerous alien presence and some very old ghosts all make this a cooler, less jolly version of Lois McMaster Bujold novel, though it also sets the stage for bigger dramas to come.