Dark Between the Stars is large scale space opera, a beginning for The Saga of Shadows, following a previous saga of seven novels, The Saga of Seven Suns. After a devastating war, the whole Spiral Arm has had time to recover and return to normalcy; the humans have spread throughout the whole Arm, and coexist more or less peacefully with other alien races, some more alien than others. There is, however, something dark and old rising.

The beginning of the novel didn't promise much; it starts with a space version of domestic dispute, where the husband, Garrison Reeves, is depicted as a caring father and a smart and observant employee. The mother, Elisa Reeves, is at least as smart but she is painted as career-focused, selfish and petty. The son, Seth gets caught in between. Unfortunately, in this particular case it continues throughout the book; Garrison is a very sympathetic figure while Elisa becomes more and more black compared to Garrison's white.

Luckily, though, they are not the only main characters. After the initial scene, the story picks up by following various people around the universe - and there are plenty of them. Dozens of people get introduced and later followed in short chapters. Typically each chapter is only a few pages, so the scene changes often. That has the unfortunate side effect that you end up not caring about the characters too much - I found I formed any kind of connection with only a few of the characters and only at the end of the book.

Having said all of that, it's really not bad. The story itself picks up speed, and once you get to know the characters, even if you don't care about them too much, you get familiar to them so that the rapid-fire scene changes serve to keep you focused. Although the enemy seems to be painted with extremely dark brush - there really are no redeeming qualities and nothing to sympathize for - it really made me want to read the next book in the series.

Perhaps even better, it also made me want to find out more about Anderson's universe. I haven't read The Saga of Seven Suns, and even if that might have added some depth into my understanding of this book, I didn't find it necessary. After reading the book, though, I definitely want to read the first saga as well.

... oh, also: even though the story flowed well, it really started to pick up the pace only in the last third of the book. The length might be positive when it comes to character and world building (although there's already the first saga, and the character building could be better...). Particularly considering this is only the first book of a series, it probably would've benefited from being 250 pages shorter.