Solo los pocos habitantes de las escasas colonias en órbita en torno a la Tierra logran escapar al holocausto nuclear que se desata, estamos en el 2.010 DC. Entre los afortunados se cuenta un equipo de investigadores del sueño que se dedican a estudiar el comportamiento de animales con capacidad de invernar con el fin de hallar pistas y encontrar posibles soluciones al hecho de que los humanos nos pasemos 1/3 de nuestra vida durmiendo, lo que aparentemente es un desperdicio, por lo menos para algunos. Los descubrimientos obtenidos les llevan a obtener una forma de control del tiempo muy peculiar el espacio-L. Año 27.698 DC, numerosos planetas de la Galaxia han sido colonizados y a ellos llegan, de forma irregular y con el fin de reclutar seres humanos, los Inmortales, viajeros espaciales con extraños lazos con la vieja Tierra, que parecen vivir eternamente; la última leva de reclutas iniciará la búsqueda de los Inmortales para acabar cayendo en la cuenta que ellos mismos lo son y que deben enfrentarse a una amenaza que se cierne sobre toda la galaxia.

I really liked this book, mostly (as others have said) because it is one of the few books to explore a plausible way to travel the galaxy without going faster than the speed of light. (This is interesting from a scientific point of view because faster-than-light travel breaks causality, at least according to special relativity; faster-than-light travel in one reference frame is equivalent to time-travel in another reference frame.)

The other thing that I found particularly memorable about book is a very brief section near the beginning about how colonization of space began, concluding with "The conquest of space is too important an enterprise to be left to governments."

The story of the book is so-so, the characters only so-so. The thing that makes it interesting is the ideas. ( )

Sheffield is one of my favorite authors,so perhaps I go into this review somewhat biased from that perspective. Nonetheless, in this book he presents a different approach to traveling between the stars without employing FTL.

Decent character development (a bit too shallow for my taste) and a plot that if anything moves along at too brisk a pace. Seems as if perhaps this was originally a short story(?)(cover it states REVISED -- 25,000 words longer than original edition) which could contibute to the perceived pace of the plot and depth of character development. ( )

One of Sheffields singletons, this stand alone volume delivers a nice story, hard science details, and page turning suspense. The more I read Sheffield, the more I regret not discovering him sooner. A lovely, lovely book, which tosses around some very thought provoking ideas. ( )

OPIS: Nuklearni rat na Zemlji preživjela je skupina ljudi koja se tog trenutka nalazila u svemiru. Roman u kojem se dio radnje događa 2010., a dio 27.698. (!) godine, a neki junaci su isti i sve skupa nije besmisleno trabunjanje ... TO može samo pravi SF i zato je vole oni koji razmišljaju ... A za autora, Publisher Weekly kaže: "JEDAN OD NAJMAŠTOVITIJIH TALENATA KOJI SE U NOVIJE VRIJEME POJAVIO NA SF SCENI".

MOJ OPIS: Nenadjebivo napeto i zanimljivo, s pokojom humorističnom dosjetkom!!!
Edargrim ( )