Starts off as fluff (featuring a lot of fluffy boys) but it goes to some certainly interesting places by the end. If you thought it was hard to parse what other characters are thinking in Echo, just wait until you read the explicitly political work by the same group of authors. If anything, I think it takes quite a while to get going, but every character feels like they get quite a lot of time to develop and slowly have more of their beliefs and motives exposed. The central romance is very good too but it's not like that's much of a surprise because I already read Echo so I know what these guys are capable of.