I love a good sci-fi novel!! The main character Mahit becomes the new ambassador for her small mining station and gets to fulfill her childhood dream of visiting the Empire. Of course there's one small problem in that her predecessor died under mysterious circumstances and a bunch of politics ensue.
Even though the Empire is this overwhelming force that could at any time annex her home, I likex how it wasn't just Empire = bad and Mahit's station = good. Mahit grew up enjoying a lot of the empire's cultural exports e.g. poetry and gets to know some of its people as well through her work as an ambassador.
The other cool part about this book is the maintaining of heritage through copies of people's consciousnesss. Essentially you have a copy of the mind of your predecessor living in you, so that with each successive generation the knowledge can continue to grow and be passed down. I would love to see this concept explored more in future books.