Despite my reluctance to finish any book that clearly won't earn at least 2 1/2 stars, this book forced me to. I claim this because it continually promised to develop into something better, but never actually delivered on this. Mr. Pellegrino has, like Larry Niven, developed his own technology, which, I'll give it, is believable. This is as it should be, seeing as how Charles Pellegrino has a very impressive resume as an archeologist, and generally bright scientist. The premise of near-light-speed anti-matter fueled rockets is accepted by just about everybody, and Charles Pellegrino appears to have fully researched the subject. His "relativistic rockets" are not part of the problem I have.
Even with a snippet of praise from the great Arthur C. Clarke on the cover, I have to say that the main ideas that this book revolves around are preposterous, even if one doesn't subscribe to the Utopian future that Star Trek gives us. The main idea is that any technologically developed, space faring world will invariably seek to destroy other planets where civilization does or is likely to exist either now or at some future time. His reasoning that we haven't heard from any other life in the universe because they are all hiding from attack from anybody else out there strikes me as being excessively paranoid. In Charles view, the whole universe is populated with beings huddling in silence, who, when the first hint of intelligence communicating with radio waves is detected, launch a "relativistic rocket" towards it, hoping to destroy the newcomers before they decide to destroy them first. Admittedly, being capable of deep space exploration requires the ability to travel fast. Yes, something traveling at a sizeable percent of light speed would carry an amazing amount of kinetic energy. But anybody having a nuclear weapon will not blow anybody else up just because the victims had the ability to develop the same.
Upon the realization that I'm rambling, and that the above is merely my opinion of the outrageousness of his ideas (not necessarily proof that his book merits rejection), I'll expound briefly on that subject. At various times during the book, (and for no apparent reason), the story ends, the universe dies, is reborn, and the characters pick up where they left off, only with slightly different pasts and futures. To me, there is no reason for this except that the author got bored with the way things were going, and decided to change them without throwing out the script. I'd have to say that after the third time he springs this on you, it starts getting tedious. To be honest, my first paragraph relates why I don't like the book, the second, why I found it boring. The last one is the problem, I'd say. There is enough materiel here to make a very good short sci-fi story; the premise and beginning plot are enough to make a person reflect on the possible psychology of alien life, as well as numerous other interesting things. It is unfortunate that he's decided to try to expand it to a 300 odd page novel, because it is clearly uncomfortable being one.