I did not read the first book. Yet, I had no problems jumping right into this one. Having not read the first book, sometimes you can feel like you have missed a lot. However, this was not the case with this book. What drew me into this book was the world and the characters that the author has built with this series. A nice futuristic book. Everyone from Lt. Commander Thomas Kane to Lt. Katja Emmes and SubLt. Jack Mallory were all strong characters. As much as I enjoyed the characters and the world, I did feel like about two thirds of the story was mainly just conversation. There was really nothing going on. The last third of the story is where the action happened. However, it was over pretty quickly. I do agree with another reader that if this had been the first book in this series that I would have not wanted to continue reading. ( )