Besides being an exciting story told well, this book should be interesting to all SF fans because it was the first real example of what we now call "Military SF." It predated Heinlein\'s "Starship Troopers" by several years. Jerry Pournelle was strongly influenced by reading this and other Beam Piper works. (I think it is no coincidence that a minor character in this book is named Col. Falkenberg!)