Just read: Burnt Ice by Steve Wheeler

Burnt Ice is a hardish (firm?) science space opera that reminded me a little of Iain M Banks and Alastair Reynolds*.

It's about a team of military engineering intelligence agents: they basically go in to check out weird tech and decide how to use/destroy it. As you might expect, a routine first mission draws them into a much more complicated situation.

There's a lot of getting into the details of the tech, enough that it's clear Wheeler has thought the implications of things through (even if not everything is fully explained). The world he introduces us to has a lot going on, as well (note: this is the first book of a series).

Recommended!

* Important footnote: Wheeler does not have any of the torture scenes or gratuitous awfulness that often appears in Banks and Reynolds stories. This is good.