Man, Orson Scott Card doesn't know this, but me and him are in a fight. 
 Okay, so the interesting thing about this book is the genre blending of space-faring sci-fi and time travel fantasy. I picked it up in the first place because I was promised interesting and unique time travel mechanics. Having just finished the Gate Thief series, in which there is a pleasantly unique and "grand unified" magic system, I was looking forward to some equally satisfying science-y analog. But no. The annoying thing about this book is the fact that nothing interesting is done with this great potential. At all. Firstly, the time travel manages to be boring. Which is annoying because that's what I came here for. But more egregiously, the entire book reads as a mere preface to some greater and longer story, and while doing so manages to hamfistedly and tediously plod along through every fantasy trope and every step of the hero's story monomyth. 
 Not to mention the fact that it's Orson Scott Card, so all female characters are shallow, one-dimensional, and dismissible. And the heroes are improbably sophisticated 13 year old boys who outsmart, outclass, outmaneuver, and outperform any and all adults they encounter.