content: Generally pretty lame, although the idea it takes off from is kind of fun--the recovery and resuscitation of astronaut Frank Poole, whose body had been flash-frozen one thousand years before. ----- For me the book was particularly marred by one of the silliest popular misconceptions current, namely that religion is responsible for most of the world's suffering. The two great causes of persecution in this century have been atheism (particularly under the former Soviet Union and its vassal states) and racism (under the Thousand Year Reich, during its decade or so under the sun). Also ripe for blame are political ideology and territorial ambition. Clearly, something else is happening--call it man's inhumanity to man. It doesn't seem reasonable to blame religion for a common human failing. ----- Arthur C. Clarke is a fine thinker when he sticks to his area of expertise. His book on the terraforming of Mars is wonderful. This one is a duck.