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Before commenting on the actual contents of the book, I'd like the say that I thought the presentation was excellent. I read using the epub version on a PRS-505 and liked the layout, typography and excellent cover.
Moving on, I can live with the central conceit, although I'm not crazy about voice-in-the-head stories (like the ones Baen has published by David Drake et al.) but I had trouble accepting the forced nature of the mystery.
Mr. Carver had to conceal the motivation and nature of the Quarx from the reader, but he did it by keeping that even from the Quarx by forcing a sort of amnesia on him. By the end of the book, we still can't be sure that the Quarx is altruistic and how it came to be trying to save these civilisations.
There are also too many loose ends for me to really enjoy. I don't mind series, but I like each book to be very self-contained (e.g. I think John Scalzi does a great job with this in his Ghost Brigades books). This entire novel felt to me almost like a setup for the *real* series.
On the other side of the ledger, I liked most of the human characters. Contrary to Sparrow above, I really enjoyed the mining scenes. In fact, I wish that Mr. Carver would write a nitty gritty story next. In his books, the science fictional elements are often the ones I like the least (for e.g. the star rigging, dragons, Quarx) and the human elements are the ones that I like the most.
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