Good development of the characters from the first book (especially developing the main character from smuggler to something more) and I enjoyed the fuller description of the worlds and the 'bad guys'. Wooding found the balance between making this a stand alone story and part of a series well in my opinion. There was enough explanation of the first book in the series scattered throughout that a new reader would have an idea what was going on, but not so much that a returning reader would be fed up with the repetition.