One of Peter's best for me. A vivid, plausable exoplanet, a whip-smart lead, and plenty of action and adventure mixed with sometimes very quick thinking yet clear and profound cogitation. Just the proper recipe for a truly cracking story. Even from the very beginning, the nature of the crew's birth shows us we're not in for your stereotypical action story, yet when we see the warring factions later on and all that lead to them (the drill thing scared me, I clenched up), it was also evident that when action needs to happen it happens well. I felt a bit like I was reading some james White at times, and at others, heinlein.