Today I read the first third of the core volume four. I'll probably read a bit more tonight. Ideally I'd like to finish it tommorow, but I'm shooting for finishing it the day after.
I'm enjoying it thus far. I read the description for the Exile era a while back, and I assumed some of it would be detailed in the core stories, I was not expecting a time skip between 3 and 4, not paying much detail to what happened in between. With that, I think my first priority after I finish this, will be to read some of the Exile stories, because I'm really interested.
ReRob became one of my favorite "characters" somewhere in the third volume, and his introduction with the band at the beginning of this one was really nice.
On that note, I've been wondering how much all of the characters differ from their real life counterparts (personality at least, obviously none of them really build or pilot starships).
Also, some of the detailed descriptions of the science and machinery throughout these has been going right over my head, I apologize, though I do recognize the effort put into such passages.