I got to about the halfway mark of this one before I gave up on it. When I skipped to the end, though, it looked like the action picks up in the second half, so if none of my issues are problems for you, it may be worth checking out.
First, I felt like there were too many lengthy info dumps and explanations of things. I didn’t mind this much at first, since the world was fairly interesting (I’m a sucker for libertarian futures, whether or not I would want to live in them). However, this slowed down the action considerably and made it difficult to really get into the story.
Second, without getting into spoilers, the inciting incident wasn’t all that compelling. I couldn’t really tell what the danger was, and even though the characters were freaking out a bit, it wasn’t at all clear what they were so afraid of.
Third (and this is a minor spoiler), the fact that they sent out a prototype spaceship without testing it first, on what was supposedly an important rescue mission, really strained credulity for me. The ship was constantly breaking down, impeding their rescue efforts, and all I could do was shake my head and wonder why. It wasn’t like all their older ships weren’t capable of carrying out the mission, or that the prototype was clearly superior to the older ships in a way that made it uniquely and exclusively suited for the mission.
What it really felt like was that the author needed the ship to be constantly breaking down, so he came up with an excuse for that to happen without fully thinking through all the implications. That, or this kind of bullcrap happens in the corporate world all the time, and the only reason I find it so unbelievable is because I don’t have any experience working as an engineer for a faceless corporation.
With that said, the world was interesting, and I liked the parts where the main character was interacting with his family, or talking with his wife about their struggles and plans for the future. The author can clearly write interesting and compelling characters. This feels a bit like a first novel, though, so I’m interested to see what comes out from him in the next couple of years, after he’s had a chance to master the craft.