This is a fluffy novella about a space dragon trying to lead a crew for a salvage job in a universe that usually has a human rider running the show. The characters were fun, but this book was too much of a marshmallow for me.

The biggest conflict in the story was Lux's internalized worries about running their own crew. (Other conflicts like space horrors, mud, and dangerous wildlife are quickly and immediately solved with little repercussions.) It's not that I need a story to be gritty and stressful, but in order for a story whose emotional resolution is a space crew bonding together, I need more pulling them apart (either emotionally or via external circumstances) to have that pay off. Ultimately, this novella doesn't quite stand on its own for me, and feels like the first third of a book where everything is going well just before it doesn't.

This is the first in a series, and it poses a number of unanswered worldbuilding questions: how dragon and human society got to where it is, what went down with Lux's old partner Sar, and some other mysterious goings-on that are revealed at the end of the book. I enjoyed the worldbuilding about a universe seemingly built for humans that only grudgingly makes room for space dragons even as it depends on them, and I hope future books get into this more.