Shards of Earth

This is hard to rate, on the one hand the actual story, when it happened,  was fantastic, on the other hand much of this book was world building which was done in a, for me, boring way. The usual stereotypical ‘ragtag group of' space pirates/smugglers/traders/scoundrels but with a heart of gold goes through boring pirates/smugglers/traders/scoundrels stuff and we learn about the world in the process. You have read that in a 100 books a 100 times before. But the world, the universe, is fantastic with a rich history and multiple alien races and it just feels real.
Looking forward to book 2