Reminds me of season of Babylon 5 or Deep Space Nine - a lot of plots and wheels within wheels. Perhaps too many. Like television, it ends in a rush which leads to the next book/season. I prefer the first book to standalone, and this one really doesn't.

This very large cast of characters has a few "main" characters that don't really change that much over the story. The plot is both good military SF and hard SF, though with a few quibbles - how was a station designed with the idea that the intelligent race from the planet was required for maintenance?

This book won the Hugo award in 1982 and is on several best of lists. It is the second novel I have read by Damon Knight Grandmistress of SF (and resident of Spokane) C.J. Cherryh, but it gets the same rating as the first. Not sure I can say more than it just didn't work for me.