A little slow-paced, actually. The first half is them getting space exploration back, so there's lots of speeches and fund-raising and failed experiments. Then it's off to the center of the galaxy. Of course someone dies along the way (I guessed wrong about who it would be). At least it wasn't from a seriously dumb-ass decision on Hutch's part this time. The encounter with the alien guys in the stagnant civilization seemed awfully close to the same scenario McDevitt used in one of the Alex Benedict books. Liked the action at the end but it did take a while to get there.
