a hard book to judge. it kept me going and it took four days to get through it, but it is well written and well plotted, but it is NOT well-paced, and that, I think, i why it gets four stars instead of five. we have not heard of this wrfiter before or after this one book and this one edition. there is not one iota of evidencer to suspect this, but i believe this is the work of a well known writer dipping into science fiction to see how it would go. i encourage reading it and filing a review on it. ( )