Major Isoor posted:

Huh, ok - I knew it was set in the universe of another series, but I didn't know it revolved around the main trilogy, as I was actually told that it's more-or-less a standalone book.
So what's the deal with it; does it just feature a lot of characters and make a lot of references to events in the previous books, or? Since if it's OK for a first-time reader still, I guess I'll go through it, see if I like the author's style of writing, etc. and then if so, get the main trilogy.