This book has it all. Incredible conceptual ideas, believable but still novel future science, characters that you care for and some that are at times a little scary all wrapped up in a great storyline and plot. This is quite a book. The ship itself is only quite interesting but then the people on the ship find something very surprising that makes you wonder what sort of book you are in for. What they find causes a problem, the solution to which, while being simply jaw-dropping in its scope, is entirely in keeping with the scene the auther has set. The only thing that makes me withold that final star is that the resolution could probably have been dealt with in twice as many pages. It feels a bit too easy.