>Warning: I skimmed that book some time ago and found it unreadable.
Going on the plodding, painfully expository passages Paul cited, I expected
that to be true. The author made just about every crude mistake that
science fiction writers have learned to avoid during the last 60 or 70
years - usually the mark of a neophyte enthralled by his or her ideas but
without the patience to learn the medium (that is, to learn from the
developments in narrative technique hard-won by pioneers).
Oddly enough, this aesthetic evaluation has no force with plenty of
readers, who lustily enjoy (for example) the Doc Smith space operas I wish
I'd read when I was 12, before their gauche style and characterisation
became intolerable to me. A very funny book has been compiled from such
sources - edited by Neil Gaiman and Kim Newman - appropriately titled
GHASTLY BEYOND BELIEF.
Damien Broderick