There was much to appreciate here, but I didn't appreciate this book much.

Aliens that aren't just humans in disguise, some discussion of the psychological impact of a technology that replicates you over interstellar distances and a Mysterious Giant Object which gets more weird the more you learn about it are all good but it's all swamped by irritating problems of characterisation and plotting. The book isn't really a novel; it's a novella which subsequently got a serial of short story sequels, so the pacing is all over the place and you're left at the end with very little explained and a sense of things stopping rather than being resolved. The is a further volume which I assume clarifies matters but I'm not going to go out of my way to find it.

The characters are largely one dimensional and there is no female protagonist for the first half. The one female character up to this point exists solely to give out "hero" someone to pine for in her absence. Then once we get a proper female protagonist she is over the violent death of her husband and fancying a local tribesman in a matter of two days...

It's a shame the execution is so poor because there's a good story buried in here trying to claw it's way to the surface. ( )

Reading this again 40 years later it's still a good story if a little dated. I have just laid hands on the sequel that i never previously knew existed. I think it would make a good TV series if brought up to date. ( )

Not a bad book. The story is still far future tech (tachyon transmissions that are faster via a LibraryThing | Catalog your books onlinebilllions light year route than a few hundred local miles via radio, transmitting body information to a distant location to be replicated) so the story is far from being outdated. The person copied is still at the original location but now there is an exact copy (plus minor editing to accomodate different gravity and things like that). The concepts in the book were interesting, the reading a slight chore sometimes to read. Of course it helps to set aside time where you are solely focused on reading. That said, I found I read best at night with music in my ears. I read pretty quickly doing that.

At first I looked at the cover that has a somewhat rocky, mountainous landscape, orange and blue skies, a flying tentacled robot , a man who looks ridiculously tall and thin, and very out of proportion to most normal humans. Made me think of descriptions of the ancient Gauls, tall, lanky, thin but muscled. There is also a metallic looking girl with wings (a fairy?). But upon reading the story, the reason for these characters is the planet is gimongous but low gravity, so people can jump up and not fall too quickly. Thus the tall thin man and other things. So it wasn't ridiculous at all.

Not the most exhilirating read, but not bad either. ( )