Space Opera Fans discussion

The November 2018 INDIE Pick is Last Train from Earth by Al Philipson. Please use this thread to post questions, comments, and reviews, at any time.

Official description:
It’s 2206 and the president of the Free States of America is scheming to declare herself a dictator after the 2208 election.

When Eric Stewart, inventor of the Stewart Faster-than-Light drive and owner of the giant Stewart Industries conglomerate, discovers her plot, he launches a desperate plan to escape to a virgin planet with as many people and as much industrial capacity as he can. But he and his fellow conspirators have a spy in their midst.

It’s a race against the president’s murderous goons and time — and the time-bomb is ticking.

I just finished reading it for the second time. Just as great as the first time through.

The characters are well-developed and the emotions are sometimes a bit raw, especially when a character loses someone close to him/her. Okay, I've given something away. People die in this and even major characters aren't safe.

I like characters who are a bit above the average (hence my love of Heinlein's stories) and this book delivers. The story is told in first person from the viewpoint of the "sidekick", so his story pretty much takes up more room than that of the "hero" (his boss).

I'd love to hear other impressions of the characters and the idea of telling a story through the eyes of a secondary character.

The plot is well-developed and doesn't seem to have any missing parts that I can detect. How about you? Are there any holes?

I particularly like that there's not a cliff-hanger ending. The story is complete in itself -- even though there are more books in the series.

Oh, for writers out there:
There are NO dialog tags in this book, yet I had no problem figuring out who was talking at any point. I read somewhere that Philipson did that on purpose to show that it can, indeed, be done and the result would be more "action" by the characters, rather than the "talking head" syndrome. It worked for me. How about you?