Just about all SF starts with some unlikely event (a black hole colliding with the moon, alien visitation, nuclear war etc), or in the future where things are radically different. By contrast, this novel takes us from something like the present, to a plausible future without any unlikely events. It is a realistic, non dystopian future: Imaginative and awe inspiring, but believable.
Our hero. The novel is written in the third person, but from our hero's viewpoint. He's often under threat, sometimes saving the world from slavery, falling in love, out of love and into peril. It's fast moving, plot driven, but with enough time to paint character portraits of the main actors and some of the supporting cast. Not boring.
No. Though there is some military action, it's not concerned with military minutiae.
I thought you'd never ask: Here 'tis:
Who am I to deprive you?:
OK, brace yourself, here it is .