I've honestly not read that much steampunk, but those that I have read all seem to blur together with common airship themes, nobility and rank curs, Victorian style duels, and plain adventure. As an entire genre, it suffers in my mind as becoming old hat. Perhaps if this novel had come out a decade ago, I'd have been so damn impressed and enthused with the whole idea that I'd have enthusiastically endorsed it regardless of a decent story, especially if the characters were bright and delicious. 
 I was anxious. I'm a big fan of Dresden Files. But then, I loved his Codex Alera, so having seen him treat epic fantasy as well as UF, I started with a bit more forgiving outlook. 
 So how well did Butcher pull this off? 
 I think it ended extremely strong. The taste of things to come is Very exciting, but of course, without strong characters, that would be meaningless. It isn't meaningless. 
 My initial reactions to the novel was a bit more turbulent, with more than a few fractures in my Aetherial Crystals. 
 None of the characters started very strong. They seemed very workmanlike, like a standard template, and it took a while before Gwen or Grimm or Bridget or anyone else started to grow on me. Of course, that's probably because Butcher decided, for good or ill, to develop everyone primarily by their experience on stage. Captain Grimm is a notable exception, and he happened to be the one I liked best, first. Gwen just seemed like a major disaster in the making. 
 All of this improved as the story advanced, hitting quite a few standard steampunk tropes along the way, and by the time the swashbuckling and the monster killing was fully under way, I was fully invested. 
 But the best part of the novel was the ship, the Predator, and the aerial battles, from the chases to the larger naval battles. I've never been that fond of military actions, but perhaps it's merely a function about how well they are written. These were done very entertainingly. 
 I may be alone in disliking one aspect of the novel: 
 The cats. 
 Yes, anthropomorphic cats. Intelligent spies, war-like nature, and upset at how inconstant those damn humans are. Okay, that last part was funny. The rest just never struck me as that great. Furry meets steampunk. I WANT to think it would be a good mash-up, but I was left kinda cold. 
 That being said, the novel became quite good by the end. I'll definitely continue the series later. 
 Update 4/27/16 
 This novel has been nominated for the 2016 Hugo for best novel! 
 Unfortunately, this is not my top pick. I really enjoy the author in general and I can enjoy the fact that he's writing in a new field, and this novel does have a lot of epic action scenes and darring-do and excellent world-building ideas, but it didn't capture my heart and my imagination quite as much as I might have wished. 
 Maybe it's the steampunk. Maybe I just want to like steampunk more than I actually do. I don't know. 
 Regardless, this is also a solid Book One of a series. A lot is left for later exploration with an ever-greater war in store for us. This is a problem for me when it comes to the Hugos. I don't think I'm alone in a hope that a new category opens up for Hugo Series Winners, or a little more realistically, Best Novel in A Series for 20** year. Then there would have been a real place for Ancillary Mercy, The Aeronaut's Windlass, The Fifth Season, or past wonderful novels like A Memory of Light. 
 There were a lot of great SF novels that came out in 2015 that weren't part of series that I think got short shrift. Hugo awards ARE a popularity contest, it's very true, but it gets rather odd when we have to rely on tons of additional books to get across all the stories we want to say when some novels do it concisely and truly do fit the category of Novel (not Novels). Radiance and The Library at Mount Char are good 2015 examples. 
 That being said, I'm not saying this was a particularly bad choice, especially since it has lots of story, lots of plot, and interesting characters and settings. It could wind up being one of those truly glorious series we always squee about, such as Butcher's Dresden Files. I'm just saying that there's way more than enough examples of two great categories that could be split at long last. I mean, think about it. This year alone, 3 of the 5 nominations are part of a series. Two are first books. Is this getting out of control?