More than "I liked" and slightly less than "I really liked" but a promising fresh discovery nonetheless. Basically two stories told in parallel, crossing paths once along the way. The protagonists were charmingly flawed, even if a few of them were a bit lightly sketched (guilt-wracked mercenary hiding his good heart under a layer of gruffness anyone?) If anything, the world building was a bit overdrawn -- the book would have worked with 2 or 3 extra races; 12 was overkill, the author seems to equate autism disorders with the potential for pure evil, and mad-genius business girl displayed a bit too much competence porn (even the attempt to subvert that trope was heavy handed). All in all, I went with 4 stars over 3 stars because just "I liked it" didn't seem to state how much I'm looking forward to picking up #2. 
 Update re-read in preparation for March's finale release: I'm upgrading this to a full four stars. Coming back, knowing four books of story lends this first volume extra weight of enjoyment. There's a lot of worldbuilding I missed the first time through that I could only adequately appreciate having been through 80% of the journey once before.