Too long, too busy, but cool concept

This book is long - probably much longer than it has to be, but also there's a lot that happens over the course of 800 pages of plot (and something like 100 pages of extra material). We see so many cool aliens, lots of different people (both alien and human) with all kinds of ideologies that don't necessarily play well together, different technology, lots of action and battles and spaceships and maneuvering. We're never left bored, even when we're just traveling from one place to another - the travel time is handled rather brilliantly by having characters go into cryo-sleep, so the passage of time is nearly instantaneous for them. But there's also... too much. There are so many characters, most of whom are only passing-relevant for at most 100 pages. I also feel like a lot of things weren't entirely explained.

Which brings us to the negative portion of this review. There are several moments in this story where I was very much struck by the irrefutable fact that it was written by a straight man starring a woman. Kira is very casually sexualized a handful of times in the story - in a way that kind of soured my experience. The sex scenes are weird and don't feel very natural at all (using the words "embrace" and "clutching" a lot in a way that shows that the moment is being taken altogether too seriously; it felt very staged) - but luckily there are only two of those. Also, the ending was weird. It was a very classic-epic-fantasy "parting of ways" where people get gifts based on their personality/contribution to the quest. Like... not really how I would have pictured a book like this ending. Paolini, your Eragon is showing.