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This book starts out really good. I like the magic and the political system and it's powers given to the main character. I wouldn't want to live in that world, but it gives the story a lot more room to entertain us the readers.

With the main character being a hand, or hand in training it allows him to have full access to everything he wants, and a power he can use to his advantage. The downfall here is though he has a lot of power, it doesn't work if someone is a trader. This seems to lead the author to make bad things happen just to prove this, and I don't like that. I'm never a fan of an author introducing characters and making the reader like them just to take them away, even if it is the easiest way to accomplish something. That automatically makes me not trust the author, and that takes away a lot of enjoyment from what would otherwise be a really great book.

A whole lot happens in this book really fast. By chapter 20 you feel like there has been enough happen for an entire book. Thankfully this isn't an author who will stretch out 20 chapters into 40 like so many others. At the half way point you are left wondering where else this will go, but the plot gets a second wind and takes off all over again.

The second half of the book is just as good, only with a somewhat different character set. Aside from the one hick up in the first half I really liked this. It is a solid 4.5 out of 5, but since that isn't possible here I suppose it deserves a 5 out of 5. I did enjoy this one a lot more than the first book in the starship's mage series. I'm really looking forward to the Voice of Mars which I'm starting right now.