So this was a perfectly good work of epic fantasy that was...I won't go so far as to say ruined, but definitely made unpleasant by patriarchy. Spoilers ahoy!

Staveley's mistake is in thinking that attitudes towards women, sexual orientation, inheritance, etc. are fundamental aspects of human nature rather than contingent attitudes that develop in concert with society. Because the world he created is by no means feminist, but it has both a long history of accepting women in combat and pretty good birth control. And those two pretty important facts play no role whatsoever in the rest of Staveley's world building.

I'll give the three most egregious examples.

1) The misogyny addressed to and eventual murder of a female cadet. Ha Lin is the love interest of one of the main characters so, naturally, she's assaulted, beaten, and killed. And I get the justification in the plot (to a degree), but there's the meta problem of killing off a female character in order to goad a male character into taking action. Women function as plot points, not people. Moreover, there's no reason that misogyny in the ranks of a co-ed force would look the same as one that is all-male or recently co-ed. Delany talks about this - if you put children and young adults in situations where gender is mostly irrelevant, gender becomes mostly irrelevant. The awkwardness imposed by society disappears outside of society. So it's jarring to see Staveley transplant the misogyny he expects to see in a situation where it doesn't belong.

2) A female soldier visits a female whore and the latter is found dead later that day. It took literally a third of the book for our intrepid heroes to figure out another reason why the soldier might have visited her other than to kill her. FFS, seriously? No idea why she might have gone? The plot only works if you believe Valyn never thinks and isn't fit to command his big toe, much less be the the leader he's selected to be. Or if you can't see past heteronormativity.

3) If a girl is raised in a temple devoted to sensual pleasure, even if she isn't a priestess, she won't be completely terrified of OR oblivious to sex. She'll be fine with it. Even if Kaden is a hopeless dork, there's no reason for her to panic and drink herself into a stupor. She knows what she's doing, she was raised around women who must understand the female (and male) body in order to perform their worship. Again, this only makes sense if you buy into the idea that sex (and pleasure) is something women give to men rather than something women and men can enjoy together. Her fear only makes sense in the context of sex as a service women provide men, that women would prefer not to do, but do because they must. Which makes no sense whatsoever for a girl raised around priestesses of sex. You can't think that way if you believe in female desire.

4) I know, I said 3, but there are words that can go before "breasts" other than "full". Every woman has full breasts. Forget the fact that it's mostly an extraneous detail that serves, in reality, as a method of telling the reader that they are supposed to view the character as an object, might we imagine an attractive woman without full breasts? Or is that too adjectivally complicated?

The worst part is that I want to know what happens next. The story itself, even though it doesn't really deviate from the surprises one anticipates from a work of epic fantasy, is pretty good. But it's definitely an example of "I wish I could go to this restaurant and enjoy the food without being periodically punched in the face". (See [a:Ann Leckie|3365457|Ann Leckie|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/authors/1402526383p2/3365457.jpg] here if you're unfamiliar with my reference: Real Heart, Artificial Heart)