The January Dancer by Michael Flynn

An absolutely fantastic read. It's superior space opera, told as a chap in a bar recounts the hunt for an ancient artifact to a bard. It takes a little while to get going but I got drawn into it more and more as it went on. The characters are fantastic and Flynn really makes you care about their motivations and histories as the story unfolds. Plus the storyteller and bard have their own little story that comes out in the interludes.

All this has as a backdrop a really interesting world, a celtic-influenced human galactic ("Gaelactic") empire that seems to be the result of a few interstellar wars over a few thousand years. The cultures of each different planet are vibrant and fun (although he does have some annoying dialect used, luckily not to excess), and feel like places that might have developed in the world he describes.

Great stuff. Read it.