As I'd been hoping, the second book had a faster pace, so I ended up liking it a lot more than the first. Superhuman spies, smart and capable yet politically slightly naive, is a delicious premise, and the story has some nasty turns that had me giggling. Not as relentlessly bleak as Wild Cards, yet by no means an optimistic romp where everything turns out okay for everyone, this was just the right story at the right time for me.