A pleasure to read.

Try to come to the book with only the most basic of expectations. Come knowing (hopefully) that Redshirts are the basic expendable unit in the Star Trek universe. Bring your knowledge of tropes and poorly thought out plots and thingymagics, because they'll become essential reference material for this novel.

Then let it completely defy your expectations. Most Hugo winners have an air of grandeur about them. They set out to be morality tales, or epic space operas. This one doesn't. When I first started reading I couldn't work out why this would have won such a prestigious award. By the end I was in complete agreement. It's ease of humour and air of familiarity makes this one of the most accessible science fiction books I've read for a long time. Hell, I'd almost class this outside of the SF genre and closer to satire. Can a novel be both? Definitely, but if taking away one label and leaving the other gives it a further reach, then I would be glad to see it in more hands.

Superb.