It's just as good as I've been told. Enthralling, with truly epic world-building that beats the pants off of the Star Wars expanded universe, it's also a compulsively readable page-turner, complete with lots of action, sex, poetry, and horrifying deaths courtesy of the Shrike, the coolest antagonist ever. I'm really looking forward to the sequel (though it makes me sad to think that I'll have to stop reading the series there, since by all accounts the series goes downhill with ENDYMION). But it's still awesome, and something I can recommend to anyone who loves science fiction, fantasy or speculative fiction.